


We Used To Wait

by sunsetmog



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Car Accidents, Coming Out, Crying, Hospitals, Illnesses, Intensive care, M/M, Medical Procedures, Outing, Serious Injuries, Trauma, symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 05:51:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 56,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3435821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The BBC Breaking News Twitter just says, <i><b>One Direction star Louis Tomlinson rushed to hospital after M25 car crash.</b></i></p><p>or: Louis has an accident, but nobody even knows he and Nick are going out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Used To Wait

**Author's Note:**

  * For [checkthemargins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkthemargins/gifts).



> This is for my lovely **checkthemargins** , who I adore, and who loves to break Louis as much as I do. When I asked you what you would like for your birthday so many months ago, and you said you'd like Louis to be really, really hurt, I doubt you thought you'd be waiting until 2015 was well and truly underway before you'd actually get your birthday present. In between me offering this, your birthday has come and gone, I've been to stay with you, we've got drunk and taken four hours to watch twenty-eight minutes of the One Direction film because we kept having to pause and rewind and rewatch, seasons have changed, my birthday has come and gone, and it's almost spring. I'm sorry it's so late, I hope it's worth the wait. I love you. <3
> 
> Thank you to **hermette** for my beta. I know how busy you've been and I appreciate you so very, very much indeed. I did also take medical advice whilst writing this; from my first series of conversations I learnt that American hospitals are very different from UK hospitals, and from my second series of conversations with my UK doctor friend, she learnt that even though she had literally zero knowledge of One Direction before coming to stay with me for what she thought was an Avengers-themed weekend, this wasn't enough of a reason to avoid being badgered about hospitals and accidents and Things Louis Might Be Going Through. Thank you, both of you. Any remaining medical inaccuracies, extra commas, dramatic licence regarding ventilators etc is entirely my responsibility. 
> 
> And a big thank you to the people who read the first few parts of this on my Tumblr when I started posting bits of it as a WIP; you were the push I needed to finish this, so thanks. If you have any questions about the content, or think there's something else that should be warned for, [send me an ask on Tumblr](http://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/ask).

Nick hears about the accident on Twitter. 

He's still full from lunch out with Gillian and Henry and Pixie, still vaguely regretting going for a dessert on top of his risotto. The four of them had been talking about going to an art gallery that Pixie knew about that afternoon, but Nick had begged off, lying about having to do stuff for work. He's flopping round the flat instead, the dog wandering around after him, getting under his feet. There's washing in the machine too, and more than half of it is Louis's. 

Considering Louis is indulging in a secret relationship with someone he spends some quality time in public pretending to hate, he's spectacularly good at leaving his shit lying around Nick's flat. 

Nick puts the coffee machine on and texts Louis whilst it's starting to percolate. _You're late Tomlinson. Where are you?? I have needs that require attending to. Thought you were picking something up for tea. Fancy a takeaway. And you, obviously xx_

He sends another one straight off the back of that one: _And by needs I mean my cock._

Louis doesn't text back immediately, which Nick hopes means he's on the road, because Louis hasn't been able to resist a dick text yet. Louis has just dropped a spectacular, jaw-droppingly stupendous amount of money on a brand new, ridiculously extravagant, jet black Porsche 911, and that's obviously meant that he's been making up excuses to go out and drive around on errands all flipping week instead of sneaking over to Nick's to have as much sex as possible. He'd disappeared at arse o'clock this morning, fresh from the delicious warmth of Nick's bed, because of some shit, terrible reason that involved driving to Hampshire to drop off something at some guy from their tour team's house. Nick had stopped listening after the part about Hampshire. He'd managed to delay him a bit by suggesting blow jobs, but not even Nick promising to blow off lunch and spend the whole day with his mouth around Louis's cock had been enough to put Louis off taking his car out for yet another a spin. Nick's beginning to think he's been supplanted in Louis's affections. Admittedly, it's an extremely hot car. If their relationship wasn't set strictly at spy-levels of secret, then Nick would have spent most of this week in the passenger seat, demanding they find somewhere they could pull over and have very cramped, extremely expensive sex with zero risk of being discovered. 

A boy can dream. 

As it is, theirs is a secret love, and the spy-secrecy dial is turned up to eleven. That in itself gives Nick a thrill, and he rather suspects Louis feels exactly the same, the two of them imagining themselves James Bond and sneaking around to have quite glorious sex whenever they can manage it. 

At least, Nick hopes they're going for James Bond. Occasionally—like that time Louis fell off the bed last week, and almost landed on the dog—he's rather sure they're leaning towards Austin Powers. _Yeah, baby, yeah_. 

He opens his MacBook so he can fuck around on Twitter whilst he's waiting the exorbitant amount of time it takes for his coffee machine to make him the perfect cup. There's a tweet from Lily about dickhead famous tax avoiders, and one from Caroline with a ridiculously hot selfie attached. He looks at her teeny-tiny feet because he can't not, not now that he knows she wears a size twoshoe. But the next tweet is from the BBC Breaking News Twitter, and it just says, _**One Direction star Louis Tomlinson rushed to hospital after M25 car crash.**_

The bottom drops out of Nick's world. 

~*~

Nick can't get Louis to answer his phone. He keeps calling, pacing the kitchen, his coffee forgotten. His hands are shaking. The BBC tweet just leads to an empty page on the BBC website that says _**Reports state that One Direction's Louis Tomlinson has been involved in a car crash at 16.30 GMT. More details to follow**_ **.**

"Come on, love," Nick says, as the phone rings out and out. It goes to voicemail after a bit, and Nick trembles as he waits for the beep. "Hi, love. It's me. Look—there's something on the BBC—it says there's been an accident. I'm sure you're fine, fuck, but just call me. Call me, Lou. Just tell me you're okay."

Louis doesn't call back and Nick doesn't know what the fuck to do. Nobody knows about him and Louis—nobody. They've been fucking around for six months, and officially going out for three of them. It's been months of sharing this delicious, wonderful, amazing secret, and fooling the world, and for tuppence, Nick would give it all the fuck up for having someone he can call and ask if Louis is okay. Harry doesn't know about them, but he isn't answering his phone either, and neither is Louis. All Nick can do is refresh Twitter and the BBC site and go on Tumblr and hope that someone, somewhere has a picture of Louis with a sprained wrist, a broken phone, and his car bumped into a lamppost. 

After an hour, the video shows up on Tumblr. 

Nick throws up twice after he watches it, crying the whole time. He can't stand up. Louis's car is barely a car anymore, it's all smashed in on one side, the roof cracked open like a boiled egg. It's sprawled across the hard shoulder, the lorry that hit it jack-knifed across all three lanes of the M25. There are a couple of fire engines and lots of police, and the video is nothing but more blue flashing lights lined up down the hard shoulder, taken by someone standing directly by the makeshift police barrier, and over it all, Nick can hear someone screaming. 

The video stops when a policeman comes over, his bright yellow jacket filling the screen, arm stretched out. It barely lasts a minute. 

It can't be Louis screaming, Nick knows that objectively—the Porsche isn't being worked on anymore, there are only police cars and no ambulances, and therefore Louis isn't inside it—but nobody, anywhere, across all of the news outlets, is reporting whether Louis is dead or alive, and Louis won't answer his fucking phone. 

"I love you," Nick says, into Louis's voicemail. "I never said it before but I really fucking love you. Please answer your phone, Louis. Please, love." 

He doesn't even have the numbers of any of Louis's family. He's got nothing, except the smell of Louis on his sheets, and his pants in the washing machine, and the post-it Louis wrote him when he decided that he wanted the two of them to actually be together. It says, _be mine, fucker_ , and underneath are four smiley faces and six coloured-in hearts. On the back, it just says, _please?_ And the rest of the space is covered in little x _'_ s. Nick carries it in his wallet. He's fairly sure the post-it he sent in return, _yes, you giant dickhead xxxxxxxx_ is folded up into Louis's, too. 

He calls Harry again, and Harry answers on the third ring. "Nick—?"

"Where are you?" Nick asks. He's going to throw up. He clings on to his dog. "How is he? Please tell me he's not dead."

Harry starts to cry, and Nick wants to tear his chest in two to stop the pain. 

"He's in surgery," Harry says, through his tears. "He's in surgery, but they don't know if he's going to make it."

"Please, please, no," Nick says. He really is going to be sick again. 

"He's so badly hurt, Nick. I think they had to restart his heart. I don't understand, I haven't been here long and no one will tell me anything, fuck, Nick. _Louis_."

"Where are you?"

Harry gives the name of the hospital, and Nick has no fucking idea where that is, but he barely knows where Hampshire is either, and he'd sent Louis off there with a blow job and a cheeky snog earlier. He's already grabbing his car keys, googling the hospital as Harry tries to catch his breath. Nick is going to pull himself apart if he can't get there soon. If he can't see him for himself.

"I'm coming down," he says, clambering to his feet. The dog jumps out of his arms. Nick can't stop shaking.

"Nick—"

"God, Harry. You have no fucking idea." He grabs his jacket from the hook by the front door. 

"They won't let you in. They won't let anyone in. His mum's on her way down." He starts to cry again. "What if he dies, Nick?"

"He won't," Nick says, but he already has once, if they had to restart his heart. He can't find his fucking sat nav. "Where the fuck's my sat nav, Harry? Please."

Louis moves everything. Louis doesn't see the point in things being put away in the same place every time. Louis doesn't see the point in putting things away full stop. 

"I don't know."

"Why can't Louis just leave shit where it is?" Nick asks, upending drawers all over the living room floor. "Why's he always got to move shit? Like, I knew where it was before he got his grubby hands on it. Fuck—" He covers his eyes with his hand. He can't breathe. His boyfriend. His Louis. 

"Nick..." Harry says. "Nick."

"He always moves my shit," Nick says, and a sob catches in his throat. "He was supposed to be coming to mine. We were going to get a takeaway."

"I don't—"

"Please don't let him die, Haz," Nick manages. The sat nav is shoved at the back of the drawer under the telly. He grabs it. "Please, please don't let him die before I get there."

"But you and Louis aren't even friends," Harry says. "I don't fucking understand."

"God," Nick tries not to cry. "It's not... I've got to go. I'm coming to the hospital. Tell him he's got to be fucking okay, okay? He's not fucking allowed to die." He grabs the sat nav, his wallet, and his keys, shutting the door on the dog. He takes the steps up from his flat at a jog. His car's a few houses down, and he unlocks it and slides inside, his hands shaking too much to get the sat nav on and the hospital logged in as his destination. He buries his face in his hands, trying to get a handle on himself as the sat nav picks out his route, and he tries not to throw up again. He keeps hearing the sound of someone screaming alongside the visual of Louis's fucked up car, repeating over and over in his head, like he can't turn it off. 

He doesn't know what to do if he doesn't get there in time. 

He doesn't know what to do without him. It feels like he only just got him. He can't lose him now; it's too soon. It'll always, always be too soon. 

~*~

Harry is supposed to be meeting him with a security guard at the entrance to the oncology department. Nick drives past the main entrance to the hospital , which is swarming with security and paparazzi and fans, and how the fuck did they get here before he did? How did they know where Louis was before Nick did? The oncology department is a little further away and Nick gets lost on the way there from the car park twice, but this is where Harry's told Nick to come and meet him and the security guy. This is the way that all of Louis's friends are being told to enter the hospital, out of the way of the main entrance. Out of the way of the photographers.

Harry looks like he's been hit by a brick wall. He's tear-stained and rumpled and red-eyed, his clothes a mess. "Nick," he says, and Nick is holding it together by force of will alone, and he can't. He _can't_. He stumbles into Harry's hug and buries his face in Harry's shoulder. The security guy stands away from them, by the doors, which means they can talk quietly without him listening in, and without anyone seeing them. 

"How is he?" Nick asks, without pulling away. He's terrified of the answer. He's never been more scared of anything. He's shaking. He's not sure how he got here without having an accident himself. The sound of horns has followed him like a plague. 

"Still in surgery."

"I love him," Nick says, still shaking. "I'm in love with him. He's with me. We're together."

Harry freezes. "No." 

"Yeah," Nick says. He doesn't pull away. He can't. His legs feel like jelly and his boyfriend's life hangs in the balance. Telling Harry they're going out seems like nothing in comparison. He wishes they'd done this before, when it was the two of them together, happy and having a laugh. Not now. Not under these circumstances. Not today. 

He can't fucking breathe. 

"I don't know why you're saying this," Harry says. "I would have known, if you and him—I would have known. One of you would have told me."

"I'm telling you now," Nick says. He wants to throw up. He can still see the flashing blue lights and the sound of someone who couldn't have been Louis screaming. He pulls away and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. "Christ. Fuck, Harry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"What do you want me to do?" Harry asks. He sounds upset and angry and confused. "What are you expecting me to do? You can't go in, nobody knows about you. Everyone thinks you're not even friends."

"I don't know," Nick says. "I don't fucking know. I'll wait. I'll wait until he wakes up, and then they'll let me in. I can't be somewhere else. I just can't."

~*~

The thing is: Louis doesn't wake up. 

Surgery lasts eight hours, and Louis's mum arrives half way through, desperate and upset. Her partner's following with the children, but Nick overhears her telling one of the security team posted at the doors to the large waiting room they've set up camp in that the younger ones won't be coming into the hospital. _They're too young for this,_ she says, and Nick's seen pictures of Louis's mum before, but she looks like she's aged ten years in the last few hours. 

Louis's stepdad is supposed to be coming down too, and he's bringing Stan, Louis's best friend that Nick has heard of but never met, and by fits and starts the rest of Louis's band arrive from their corners of the country. Nick sits in the corner and tries to hold himself together, but it's chaotic, and loud, and everyone is so terrified and upset that it's tearing Nick to pieces inside. 

Louis comes out of surgery and goes straight into Intensive Care, which is a couple of corridors away from where they've been waiting. A statement is released to say that Louis is in a critical condition, but it's too late to make the papers. It's three in the morning. 

To the people in the waiting room, Louis's life hangs in the balance, and there's not a single thing that any of them can do. Nick's never felt this helpless. He's never prayed this much just for someone to live. 

The minutes tick by and nothing changes. The hours slide jaggedly and irrevocably past. When it gets to five am, one of the security team suggests that some of them might want to go home to get a bit of sleep. Louis's condition is so critical that only one person is allowed to be by Louis's bedside, and every single person in the room knows that it's going to be Louis's mum. His stepdad spends a few minutes with him whilst his mum hugs a girl that looks too much like his mum and Louis to be anyone other than Louis's sister. When Louis's stepdad comes out, he takes Louis's sister and Stan with him to find a hotel; half an hour later Niall stops trying to sleep and suggests that the rest of the band go back to one of their houses so that they're all together. 

"My place is closest," Zayn says, stretching. He gives Nick a look. "Do you want a lift, Liam?"

Liam looks devastated. There's a weight to his shoulders that Nick's never seen before. He's tear-stained and exhausted, and when he stands up, it's like watching a mountain crumble. 

Nick can't even look at them, these boys, this band. He chews his nails instead, listening to their voices muffled by being lost in each other's coats and hoodies, staring at their feet as they go in to hug each other before Liam and Zayn leave. He's not going anywhere. Not until Louis has woken up and can tell Nick to fuck off home himself. 

Nick's seen people looking at him all night, curled up on the plastic chair in the corner, knee up to his chest. He's seen the sidelong glances, the unanswered _why is he here_ questions. He ignores them all. His boyfriend might die. His Louis.

Harry comes and kneels in front of Nick's chair. "Come back with us," he says. "We're going back to Zayn's. There's room in my car, or in Niall's. Leave your car here. You can't drive like this."

"No," Nick says, shaking his head. He can't look up. He's holding on by a thread, and Louis needs him. He needs him to be strong. "I'm not leaving."

"There's nothing any of us can do," Harry says, and he sounds almost gentle in his grief. "Come and get some sleep. We'll come straight back if there's any change. It'll just be for a few hours anyway. We can get a wash, and have a nap, and charge our phones. We might be able to see him then. We'll be better for him if we're not wrecks."

"No," Nick says again. Louis is here, in this building, and if he goes home then there's just the cold patch in Nick's bed where Louis should be. He looks up at Harry. "I'm not leaving him."

"You heard what the doctor said," Harry says. "It's just one person at the moment. Come on. Let Jay be with him. We'll come back in a few hours."

"No," Nick says. 

"They're not going to let you in tonight," Harry tells him. He looks exhausted, and broken, and they're all trying to hold it together, and they're all failing. "Nobody knows why you're here. Nobody knew about you. It's not going to be you, Nick." Harry's careful about what he's saying, but it still feels like someone is stealing all of the breath from Nick's body. 

"I'll tell them, then." He's exhausted, and stubborn, and in love. He'd blown Louis this morning. Yesterday morning, whatever. Less than twenty-four hours ago. Swallowing someone's come should get you into their Intensive Care room. 

"Nick—"

"He's my boyfriend," Nick says. "It doesn't matter that none of you knew. It doesn't matter that nobody knows. It matters that I know, and that he knows, and that when he wakes up, I am thirty feet from his fucking door, okay? That's what matters, and I'm not fucking leaving." He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes again. He's exhausted, and his eyes hurt, and his head hurts, and his chest is tight, and he is so desperate to cry again he doesn't know how he is keeping it inside, but he's not fucking leaving. "I'm not fucking leaving without him."

"Nick." Harry's eyes are wet. 

"I'm going to be here when he wakes up," Nick says, and his hands are shaking. He's shaking all over. "He's going to wake up, Harry, right? He's going to wake up."

Harry's voice catches in a sob, and he pulls Nick into a hug. "He's going to wake up," he says, and Nick clings to him. He holds on so tight he's fairly sure he's leaving bruises, but he can't help it. He's so, so scared. He's never been more scared in his life. "I'm going to see if I can talk to Jay," Harry says, and he kisses Nick on the cheek. "I won't be a minute."

Nick nods, trying to get comfortable on the hideous plastic chairs. His back hurts and he's so very tired indeed. His phone's almost out of charge. He wants Louis to come and tease him and drive him mad and kiss the corner of his mouth and sneak his hand under Nick's t-shirt. He wants to bicker and tug Louis onto his lap and kiss him quiet. 

He wants him to fucking wake up. 

~*~

"You're not Louis's boyfriend," Louis's mum says, coming over to where Nick's sitting, Harry on her heels. The room is mostly empty now, apart from Niall, waiting for Harry by the door. The others have all gone. "I would have known."

"I am," Nick says. He's so tired. "Please let me see him."

"No," Jay says. "Even if I did think it was true, which I don't. He would have told me." Her voice catches. "I just have to stand and watch them nurse him like he's dying."

"I'll watch too," Nick says, stubborn. He won't be anywhere else. 

"He's not gay," Jay says. "He would have told me if he was. He would have told me if he was having sex with another man. I'm not going to believe it just because you're here. You don't even like each other."

"He's with me," Nick says. There are pictures of the two of them on his phone, but he's out of charge. "Please. Please believe me. I just want to see him. He was supposed to be at mine tonight. We were going to have a takeaway."

"Did you know about this?" Jay asks Harry, and Nick has to watch Harry shake his head. "Are you telling me that Lou's made a decision that's going to impact his whole life, and he hasn't told me, and he hasn't told Harry? Or Niall? Who has he told, then? Who knows this when we don't?" She gets louder towards the end, eyes bright. 

"I know," Nick says. "I know and he knows, and I love him."

"No," Jay says, and she wipes her eyes. "I'm not having this. My son's in there, and he might be dying, and he might need me right this second, and instead I'm out here, having to deal with this instead. I would know, all right? I would _know_."

Never, ever has Nick wished more that he and Louis could have sorted their shit out earlier. "I'm sorry," he says, and he means it on every single level. "I'm so sorry. But I'm not leaving. I'm going to be right here until he wakes up."

"Fine," Jay snaps. "But I have somewhere to be that isn't listening to you."

Afterwards, Harry sits down next to him, and covers Nick's hand with his own. "She's out of her mind with worry."

"I know," Nick says. "I am too. You are. It's all right. I'll stay here until I can see him."

Harry squeezes his hand. Niall's hovering awkwardly. He looks upset. "What about work?"

"My phone's out of charge. I'm not going in." He hadn't thought about work. 

"I'll tell them, if you want," Harry says. "There's a charger in my car. I'll tell Ian you're poorly. They can get someone else."

"They'll get Gemma to stay on," Nick says. He can't think about work. He just keeps thinking about Louis, and if he's going to be all right. He doesn't even know how badly injured he is, apart from needing surgery on his lung. He just knows what his car looked like in that video, and that there's a list of injuries as long as Nick's arm, and that Louis's condition is so critical that Jay has to wear gloves and an apron to go into his room. "Can you text Emily and ask her to take Pig? She's got keys. Don't tell her why. You should go. Get some sleep."

"You should try too," Niall says. "You could pull some of the seats together."

"Yeah," Nick says. "I will."

God, what if Louis dies. What if he fucking dies. 

"Fuck," he says, once Harry's kissed the top of his head and Niall's clasped his shoulder and squeezed, and they've both gone. He buries his face in his hands. Louis can't die. He can't fucking die.

~*~

> "Hey, wake up." Louis poked him in the shoulder, and wafted the duvet a bit, letting the cold air in. 
> 
> Nick groaned, and tried to pull the covers up and over his head. Louis straddled him on top of the duvet, and circled his fingertips around Nick's wrists. 
> 
> "Wake up," he said again, leaning in to kiss Nick's cheek. "I made you coffee and everything."
> 
> "It's the weekend," Nick said, pretending to still be asleep. He had his eyes closed and anything. "Snoozy-sleepy times."
> 
> "Me riding you times, I think you meant."
> 
> Nick opened one eye. 
> 
> "Ha," Louis said, in delicious self-satisfaction. He sat back on his heels, still straddling Nick. "I made you coffee."
> 
> Nick peered at his clock. "It's half seven in the morning."
> 
> "Do you not want to put your dick in me or something?"
> 
> "Why can't I put my dick in you at, like, half nine?"
> 
> "Come on, it's romantic."
> 
> Nick knew he wasn't going to get back to sleep, but it didn't do to let Louis know too early on that he'd won. He groaned instead. 
> 
> "I know you're awake. Stop pretending. Come on."
> 
> "Can I have my coffee first?"
> 
> Louis made a face. "Only if you wank me off a bit at the same time. Or you could, like, finger me or something. Get me ready."
> 
> Nick tried to content himself with a raised eyebrow. He ignored the fact that Louis was wriggling in his lap, and was already probably extremely aware that Nick was hard. "Don't know if I want your bum in my face at half seven on a weekend."
> 
> Louis rolled his eyes, and hopped off him. He tugged his t-shirt over his head and pushed down his underwear, so that his dick bobbed free. 
> 
> Nick loved a lot of things about Louis, but there was a special place reserved for how much he loved his dick.
> 
> "Drink your coffee," Louis said, quite patiently for someone with his knob out. "But do it quickly so we can have sex."
> 
> Nick took three way too hot gulps of his coffee, slid out of bed so he could go and clean his teeth, and then came back into the bedroom, depositing his pants and his t-shirt on the floor as he launched himself at the bed. Louis was sprawled all over the sheets with his legs apart, his dick hard against his stomach. 
> 
> "Finally," he said, still grinning, "another thirty seconds and I would have had to get started without you."
> 
> "Shut up," Nick said, crawling over him and kissing him good morning. He loved kissing when they both tasted minty-fresh. He ran his hands up Louis's sides so that he shivered, and licked his way into Louis's mouth. "Shut up and kiss me."
> 
> "Bossy," Louis said, in between kisses. He hooked his foot around Nick's ankle, sliding his hands into the small of Nick's back, anchoring him close. Nick let himself be anchored, because the time he got to spend with Louis was the best fucking time in the world, this magnificent, delicious secret they could call their own. 
> 
> "You love it," Nick said. He kissed him again. "I thought you were going to ride me?"
> 
> Louis rolled his eyes. "Tit for tat, Nicholas, tit for tat. The least you could do is get me going a bit first."
> 
> "You're a monster," Nick told him, but he was already shifting down the bed so he could take Louis's nipple into his mouth, nipping at him with his teeth so that Louis wriggled beneath him, breathless and begging for more, his hands in Nick's hair. Louis's dick was so deliciously hard. Louis, really, really liked having his nipples played with. Nick transferred his attention to Louis's other nipple, but pinched the one he'd just licked wet. 
> 
> "Jesus," Louis managed, hips tilting up. "Do that again."
> 
> Nick suspected that no one had really bothered finding out all the tiny, ridiculous things that turned Louis on before. When they'd started doing this, Louis had been the ten-items-or-less, straight-to-the-quick-foreplay-check-out kind of a shopper. Nick rather preferred the wandering-up-and-down-the-aisles-seeing-what-was-interesting approach. Everything, it turned out, was interesting when it came to making Louis hot and bothered. 
> 
> Louis was, for example, terribly ticklish in the small of his back and behind his knees. 
> 
> And he was the kind of terribly ticklish that brought him close to coming, too. 
> 
> Nick slid his hand into the small of Louis's back, and Louis's hips bucked up at the ghost of Nick's touch. Nick buried his grin in Louis's side, kissing his way up and over Louis's rib cage so that he could rub his nose over Louis's armpit. 
> 
> "God," Louis managed, his breath catching. He really was a delicious mix of inconsistencies and still to be discovered secrets. 
> 
> Nick grazed his fingertips over the small of Louis's back, just to feel him shiver. "Like that?"
> 
> "No." Louis slid his hands into Nick's hair and pulled him up for a kiss. "Don't stop."
> 
> Nick grinned again, and kissed him back. Louis couldn't stop wriggling beneath him as Nick continued to touch him, his dick leaking, pressed up against Nick's stomach. "I fucking love how turned on you get."
> 
> Louis blushed. Louis never blushed. It felt like winning a gold medal, making Louis tremble beneath him. 
> 
> It hadn't ever felt like this before. 
> 
> "Yeah, well," Louis said. "I fucking love it when you turn me on, all right?"
> 
> Nick rolled his eyes, and made them shift position so that he was kneeling up on the bed, Louis in his lap with his legs wrapped around Nick's waist, Nick stroking his fingers over his hips and his crack and his back. Louis was really ticklish, bucking away from him, his dick bumping up against Nick's stomach every time he moved. Nick slid a finger down to stroke over Louis's hole, and his eyes widened. 
> 
> Louis was wet, and prepared, and open. 
> 
> "Jesus," Nick said. He slid the tip of his finger inside of him, and then the second. Louis was so slick. 
> 
> Louis bit his lip, leaning in so that he could rub his nose against Nick's. "I got myself ready," he said, mouth to Nick's. "Wanted to surprise you."
> 
> "I'm surprised," Nick said, crooking his fingers inside of him so that Louis groaned against Nick's mouth. "God, you're fucking spectacular."
> 
> "I know," Louis said. "Put your dick in me, come on."
> 
> "Sexy," Nick said. He started to reach over to the bedside table for a condom from the drawer, but Louis stopped him. There was a condom on the pillow. 
> 
> "I got one already," Louis said, and then he made a big deal of very, very slowly sliding it down over Nick's cock, until Nick was ready to beg him to hurry up. "You should have seen me, Nicholas," Louis went on, reaching for the Durex Play and dribbling lube all down Nick's cock so that he could wrap his hand around him. 
> 
> Nick bit back a groan. 
> 
> "Bending over in the bathroom," Louis said. "Fingering myself open. Used your dildo, too."
> 
> "Fuck." Nick couldn't breathe. "I want you now."
> 
> They shifted so that Nick was lying down and Louis could position himself over him, hovering over Nick's cock with a mischievous grin on his face. 
> 
> "Louis. Come on."
> 
> "You'll have to watch me get myself ready sometime."
> 
> "Yeah," Nick agreed, vaguely imagining Louis fucking himself with Nick's plug, although two seconds later he wasn’t sure what he'd agreed to, because Louis was sinking down onto Nick's cock, still with that smile playing on his face, and Nick couldn't remember what it was like to think straight anymore. 
> 
> Louis was beautiful like this, fucking himself on Nick's cock, and it was worse when he started touching himself too, batting Nick's hands away and refusing to let him touch. Nick just had to watch, rocking his hips up to meet Louis's, and it was so fucking amazing, seeing his dick disappearing inside of Louis. 
> 
> He could tell when Louis was getting close, could tell by the way his hand stuttered on his cock, and his breath started to catch. 
> 
> "Come on, love," Nick urged, hands to Louis's hips. "Come for me, come on."
> 
> "Christ, Nick," Louis managed, and then he was coming, striping Nick's chest with it, and Nick fucked up into him, so close, and when he came, it was to Louis clenching around him, breathless and flushed. 
> 
> Afterwards, Louis flopped down on the sheets and tugged on Nick's hand until he rolled over and hooked his foot over Louis's ankle. 
> 
> "Hi," Nick said. 
> 
> Louis leaned over and licked Nick's jaw. "Hi. How'd you fancy spending the whole day naked in bed with me?"
> 
> "Hmm," Nick said, sliding a hand over Louis's stomach and over to his hip. "Persuade me."
> 
> Louis laughed, and laced his fingers with Nick's. "My pleasure," he said, and Nick grinned against Louis's mouth. 
> 
> "Nah," he said. "The pleasure's all mine."  
> 

~*~

Nick sleeps, on and off, folded up on two plastic chairs in the corner of the waiting room. He wakes with every movement, every sound, every possible thing that could be news of Louis. He goes for a piss, and gets a cup of tea from the vending machine, and a packet of Maltesers because they're Louis's favourite. 

A nurse comes in at half past eight in the morning. "There are more comfortable seats further down the corridor," she says. "Just by the entrance to ICU, if you're not going to wait in the unit itself."

"Is there news?" he asks. 

She looks apologetic, at least. "You're not family. I'm afraid I can't tell you anything."

He nods. "Fine," he says. "Thanks anyway." 

He moves down the corridor to the chairs by the locked entrance to ICU. He tries to read the magazines in the basket by the chairs, but he can't focus. He flicks through old copies of _Woman's Weekly_ and _Take A Break_ , but he doesn't remember anything that he reads. 

Jay comes out a couple of times, her phone clutched in her hand. She nods at him, but never stops to talk. Halfway through the morning, Louis's step-dad drops by with Lottie, but in the end she won't even go in the door to the unit. She stands outside, just down the corridor from where Nick's waiting, and cries. Jay comes out and hugs her, the two of them crying together, holding each other up. 

Louis's step-dad isn't in there for long. Nick laces his fingers together to try and stem the shakes, but it's impossible. It turns out that Louis is his everything, and Louis is in there, so poorly he might die, and Nick can't fucking see him. 

Later on, around lunchtime, Harry comes back, but this time he's alone. 

"I spoke to Ian," he says, sitting down next to Nick and handing him a paper bag from Pret with a sandwich, a bag of sweet and salt popcorn, and an oat bar inside. "Said you wouldn't be in today or tomorrow."

"Thanks," Nick says, and he means it. He's not the only one suffering here. Harry looks exhausted and scared too. "Any news?"

"They're not telling you anything?"

"No," Nick says. He opens the bag of popcorn and offers it to Harry. Neither of them seem to be particularly hungry. Nick can't really remember the last time he ate. 

"He's still critical," Harry says. "He's on a ventilator and he hasn't woken up yet. That's all I know. Jay phoned us earlier."

Nick just nods, staring down at his lap. The popcorn feels heavy in his stomach. 

"The others were going to come," Harry says, "but getting out of here earlier was a mess, and they knew they wouldn't be able to see him anyway. They're going to come as soon as they say more than one of us can go in at a time. They send their love, though."

"To me?"

Harry nods. "Yeah," he says. His eyes are bright. 

"Did you tell them?"

"Yeah," Harry says. "Niall heard us talking, and anyway, I'm not going to lie about this. Not now."

"They all right with it?"

"Surprised, mostly. That he didn't say."

Nick swallows. "I think he might be the best thing that's ever happened to me, you know? Like, he just makes me laugh. He makes me laugh all the fucking time."

"I thought you argued a lot."

"Yeah," Nick says. "That too." He opens his sandwich, and takes a bite. It's tuna and cucumber; plain enough but it still sits heavy in his stomach. There's a bottle of Diet Coke, too. "Thanks for this, by the way. The food. Calling Ian. Being okay with everything. Not yelling because we didn't tell you."

Harry wraps an arm around Nick's shoulders and rests his cheek against Nick's shirt. "I'm so scared," he says, softly. "I'm scared he won't wake up. Liam cried his eyes out in the toilet this morning. Zayn had to threaten to break the door down to get him to come out."

Nick puts his sandwich back down and puts the bag down on the floor by his feet. He tugs Harry into a hug, both of them shaking. He feels sick. 

He doesn't let go. 

~*~

Jay comes out after a while, tear-stained and pale. She lets Harry hug her, and the three of them sit on the seats in the corridor whilst Jay quietly tells Harry the extent of Louis's injuries. It's a list that makes Nick's chest hurt: a punctured lung, a chest drain, broken ribs, a broken wrist, numerous lesions and cuts requiring stitches from all of the broken glass, two broken legs—that will require more surgery to pin when Louis's condition is less critical—his thighs crushed into his pelvis, but it's the abdominal stuff that sounds so awful it makes Nick want to throw up. The ruptured spleen, and Louis losing half of his blood into his belly after the crash had split his liver open. 

Nick's not sure how Louis is still alive.

"They've had to shave a bit of his hair off ," she says, and she's weeping as she tells them, shredding the tissue in her lap, hands trembling. Nick covers her hands with his own, desperate to do something, to share in this, to take some of it away from Jay, who's clearly falling apart. "He's just so small in that bed, and he's just blood and steri-strips and bandages and tubes, and I'm a _nurse_ , I should be able to deal with it, but he's my baby. He's my baby and I can't help him, and I hate it, I hate it. I hate it."

Harry hugs her then, wrapping her up into his arms, letting her sob into his shoulder. 

"Can I see him?" Nick asks, afterwards. He knows he shouldn't, but he can't not. He knows he's selfish. 

Jay looks at him, and then pulls something out of her pocket. It's Louis's wallet. There's a dark stain on it that Nick is fairly sure is blood. 

He doesn't throw up, which he counts as a win. 

He watches as Jay opens up the back pocket, and comes out with a battered, vaguely stained picture. It's of Nick. Nick laughing, sprawled across his sofa, one knee bent, feet bare. He's wearing one of Louis's giant sweatshirts over skinnies, one arm behind his head, his coffee cup resting on his chest. 

Nick doesn't even remember that picture being taken. He really hadn't known Louis carried it around. 

He doesn't know why he never told Louis he loved him before last night. 

"Sorry," he says finally. "I'm so sorry."

"Why didn't he tell me?" Jay asks him, her eyes swollen and red. Harry hands her tissue after tissue from a box of Kleenex Balsam he has in his carrier bag. "If you and him are together, why didn't he tell me?"

Nick doesn't know what to say to that. "Because we were happy," he says, after a minute. "Because the two of us, it worked, and we were happy, and it felt great, this stupid secret, and probably because we were both scared it would stop being brilliant if we had to tell people. And because we're idiots. We thought it was funny, this stupid, stupid secret. Everyone thinking we don't get on and really I could just kiss him all day." He clears his throat. "You know, he leaves his stuff all over my flat. I spend half my life tidying up after him. And he doesn't do it on purpose, he just—doesn't see it. He's not bothered if it's messy."

Jay tries to smile at that. "Don't let him get away with that." 

"I don't," Nick says. "Well, not that much."

"Don't do his washing, either," she says. "He's a right one for just accidentally bringing his washing home."

"Too late," Nick says. "Half of his clothes are in my washing machine right now." The cycle had still been half way through when he'd left for the hospital. Too much longer and they'd be going stale and damp and smelly in there. _Wake up_ , _Lou,_ he thinks. _Wake the fuck up_. 

"I miss my kids so much, you know," Jay says. "The babies—I've never been without them before, not like this. They're with Dan. I called them earlier, but it doesn't make it go away."

"You could go and phone them again," Harry suggests. "Louis wouldn't have to be alone."

"I've left him too long already."

"No," Harry says. "There's us too. There's me and Nick."

"He's so poorly," Jay says, which isn't an answer. "Fizzy wouldn't come. Lottie was too scared to go in to see him. This—it wasn't how she wanted to remember him. She was too scared. We're all too scared." Her voice cracks again.

Harry's crying again, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. He glances across Jay at him. "Nick's not just a friend, though. If not me, at least let Nick."

Jay shreds another tissue in her lap. "I didn't know," she says. "I thought he told me everything."

"It wasn't that he lied," Nick says, as carefully as he can when his world's falling down around his ears. His stomach's in knots and there's a sob caught in his throat, thick and painful. "It was just—we were so careful with what we had. I think neither of us wanted to mess it up, and we mess everything up. We mess everything up." The sob breaks, and Harry scrabbles for his hand, squeezing so hard it feels like Nick can't keep it all inside, this pain that tears across his skin from the inside out. "I really love him, and I never got to tell him. God, it's like a film. I should have waved him off telling him to sign the bloody life insurance form when he got home from whatever stupid fucking errand he was running, that's how stupid this is. I never said I loved him, and now he's in there, and I'm out here, and I don't know how to do this. I don't know how I'm supposed to be or what I'm supposed to do. I just want him to wake up."

"Same," Jay says, through her tears. "Same."

~*~

Louis's room in the Intensive Care Unit has a long window all along one side, with a view down to the car park and the little green space where half a dozen smokers are huddled round the covered area, the wind catching in their dressing gowns and pyjamas. Louis's bed is right in the middle of the room, with machines behind his head, and a workstation to one side, and another one in the corner. There are bags of red gunk hanging off the side of the bed. The room is full of wires and things that beep and whirr and count and measure. 

Nick presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and tries to breathe. There's a chair by the side of his bed, and he sits down carefully, trying not to lose his gloves or the plastic apron they made him put on before entering. The boy in the bed looks like Nick's Louis, but it isn't him. It can't be. There's a tube down his throat, and stitches across his cheek and through his eyebrow. His shaggy hair is shaved away a bit on one side of his head, a two-inch nasty cut stitched together and held with steri-strips the length of Nick's knuckle and more. His arm's in a pot, and so are his legs, and there are so many wires and drips. He's like a stranger laid out in front of him, a stranger who shares Louis's tattoos but nothing else. His chest is a mess of bandages and dressings and bruises and a chest drain and tubes and there's a bag half-full of red gunk that Nick thinks must be blood that's attached via a tube that goes directly into Louis's side. 

It makes Nick want to throw up. 

He closes his eyes for a moment, and then covers Louis's hand with his own. 

"Hiya, love," he says, and his voice doesn't break. "It's Nick, sweetheart. Haven't you been in the wars, Lou? I let you out of my sight for five seconds and you go and get yourself hit by a lorry. We're going to have to have a talk about this when you wake up. I think we should make it a rule that you can't get yourself hurt anymore. Like, not even a paper cut, okay? We're going to make it a proper rule and everything. You're not allowed to get hurt, even a tiny little bit. Not ever." His voice catches, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve. He's got no tissues, and he's not letting go of Louis's hand. It's hot in here, but Louis is pale as the dead. "I love you, Louis. I never told you, and now you're flipping asleep for it. You're missing my fucking declaration, you total idiot." He trips over his words, tears running down his face. "Just wake up, okay? Just wake up. We all want you back so fucking much."

When he looks up, Jay's watching him from the other side of the glass, out in the waiting room. She's crying, hands cupped around a Styrofoam cup of tea. They're not supposed to have hot drinks outside of the family room. 

Nick leans in and presses his mouth to Louis's hot temple. He's only allowed a couple of minutes; Louis's abdominal injuries are so severe his condition is still extremely critical. 

"I'm not going anywhere, duck. I'm going to be right here when you wake up, I swear. Just concentrate on getting better. We're all going to be right here."

He sits in the family room afterwards, the plastic apron discarded, a cup of tea from the little tea maker in the corner going cold in his hand. Jay sits next to him, silent in their vigil, the minutes stretching away from them like hours, and the hours never fucking passing. All day long they're joined by Louis's family, and his band, everyone coming and going, and none of it makes Louis wake up, or shifts him any further into the land of the living. 

Louis's life is measured in the beeps of the equipment and the rhythmic huffs of the ventilator. His boy can't breathe by himself, and Nick has never, ever been so scared in his whole entire life. 

~*~

Nick spends a second night at the hospital, but this time he sits up in the family room with a hospital blanket around his knees and Harry's borrowed phone charger plugged in to the socket on the side. He can't switch his phone on, but at least he could go outside and reconnect with the outside world if he wanted to. 

He sleeps a bit, on and off, Jay waking him with her quiet sobs at some point after five. He should be going to work, but there's no way he's leaving the hospital. They can manage a second morning without him. He joins her by the window looking into Louis's room and passes her a cup of tea. 

"What if he dies?" Jay asks, without looking at him. "He might die. What if my baby dies?"

Nick literally can't think about that. "He won't," he says. "He's got his pants in my washing machine for a start."

She doesn't smile. "He's so poorly."

"I know." The nurse who's been looking after Louis has been coming in and out of his room all night long. For a while he'd wondered if she didn't have another job to do, the amount of times she's been in and out of Louis's room, but he's blaming that on how tired he is. It's the Intensive Care Unit, of course the patients have nurses dedicated to them. 

God, he hasn't slept properly in two days. He's starting to see double. He can't remember the last thing he ate that wasn't from the vending machine at the end of the corridor. He's drunk nothing but tea and cans of R. Whites. The vending machine's been out of Diet Coke since he arrived, and Harry hasn't done another Pret delivery since yesterday. 

"Do you want a sandwich or something?" he asks, because he's starting to shake. He's so tired, and so scared, and he hasn't walked around properly in ages. "I could go down to the shop. Get us something. If it's not closed." It's the middle of the night. 

"The canteen might be open," Jay says. "People are here during the night."

Nick nods. It's worth a try. 

When he comes back, bearing two ham sandwiches and two bags of cheese and onion crisps from a vending machine next to the closed canteen, the lights are flashing and Louis's bed is surrounded by nurses and doctors, and Jay's sobbing. 

For the longest, longest moment he thinks that Louis is dead. 

"Is he—" is as much as he manages to get out, but Jay just shakes her head. Nick drops the food down onto one of the seats and lets Jay sob into his shirt. Nick stares, unblinking, through the glass as the team of doctors and nurses do whatever it is that they're doing to his boyfriend. 

They're in there for half an hour at least, and Nick feels like he's the one going through a medical procedure, and not Louis. He can't tear his eyes away from the screens surrounding Louis's bed, and it hurts so much. If Louis dies, Nick has literally no idea what he'd do. How he's managed to get under Nick's skin as much as he has done in the time that they've been together, Nick has no idea, but he can't imagine being without him, not ever. He hadn't realised how much of the day they spend texting until they couldn't anymore. 

Eventually one of the doctors comes out and tries to take Jay to one side. 

"No," Jay says. "This is my son's boyfriend. You can tell us both." Her voice doesn't catch on _boyfriend_. It does on the last bit. 

"We've managed to stabilise him," the doctor says, and Nick tries to listen to the rest of it, the update on his injuries, the impact, the future, but he can't. He's so, so exhausted, and all he can hear is _stabilised_. He needs some fucking sleep, but he can't imagine being able to, not when Louis still hasn't woken up. Not when he's still on the ventilator. "You can both go in and see him now."

"Both of us?" Nick asks. 

The doctor nods. "We've moved a second chair in there."

He doesn't make them put the aprons and the gloves on this time. Nick doesn't know if that's a good sign or a bad one. 

They sit on one side of Louis's bed, the two of them next to each other. Jay puts her hand over Louis's, and Nick holds her other hand in his, the three of them joined that way. 

"Hiya, love," he says, when it's clear Jay isn't going to say anything. "You've got to stop scaring us like this. Me and your mum are going to get grey hair, and we'll both blame you, and that would be pretty terrible. You'll never hear the end of it, love."

"That's right," Jay says, clearing her throat. "You'll never hear the bloody end of it from either of us. Me or Nick." She blinks away tears. "We've got a list of people as long as your arm who want to give you their love, baby. Harry and Niall and Zayn and Liam. They're all going to come and see you later today, just for a bit. Mark and your sisters and Dan, they're all here. All of your cousins and your aunts and uncles and your grandparents send their love. All your friends. They're all desperate to hear you're okay."

It's heartbreaking, is the thing. This life that Louis has that Nick isn't even the smallest part of. It's heartbreaking. Nick feels like it's an effort just to keep himself together; the largest part of him wants to just give in and wail and beat his fists against the glass. His beautiful, wonderful, amazing, infuriating, terrible boyfriend, so small in his hospital bed, wires and tubes and breathing apparatus and IVs and that awful wound drain the nurse keeps coming in to check and change. 

It's so, so awful. 

The day passes slowly. There's a steady stream of people coming in to Louis's hospital room, Harry sitting beside Nick for a while before being replaced with Niall and Liam and Zayn. When it's not Nick by his bedside, it's Jay, and Nick stands by the window looking in, and trying to remember that there's a world outside this room. That there's a world that Louis is going to see again, and breathe again, and sing in again. Nick would give anything for Louis to be grumpy and snappish and annoying and dogged and frustrating as hell. 

He'd give anything for him to be able to breathe by himself, or to open his eyes. 

Fucking anything. 

~*~

It's late that night when the nurse asks them to step outside. She has to run some tests, and clean Louis up a bit. Nick doesn't know. He hasn't slept in so long that it's taking him half his energy just to process what people are saying to him. He can't stop shaking. Harry had tried and tried to get them to leave with him, at least for a bit, so that they could get some proper sleep, but Jay had refused, and Nick can't think about leaving him. Not yet. 

It's going to be at least half an hour before they can go back in to see Louis, and Nick and Jay spend the intervening time holding terrible cups of tea in Styrofoam cups and not saying much. They sit down on the plastic chairs in the corner of the room.

"I didn't know about you and him," Jay says, finally. "Or about him full stop. I had no idea at all."

"I know," Nick says. He still hasn't switched his phone on. He hasn't been able to turn it on in over a day. Harry had promised to call Aimee and Ian and get them to tell Matt that Nick wouldn't be in work again. There's a whole world outside of the hospital, but Nick can't even think about it. He'll deal with it later, when Louis isn't so ill. 

"How long's it been?" she asks. 

Nick shrugs. "A while," he says. "A few months." He looks down at his knees. "I think he's the best thing to ever happen to me."

Her breath catches in a sob. "Why didn't he tell me? We talk about everything. All this time."

Nick doesn't know the answer to that. Not properly. "I'm sorry," he says. He stands up so that he can see into Louis's room, two nurses there now, bending over Louis and doing fuck knows what. "I'm so, so sorry."

She doesn't say anything to that, standing up next to him to stare through the glass. 

~*~

> "I bought you coffee," Louis said, letting himself into Nick's flat at half ten at night. 
> 
> "It's a bit late, innit?" Nick was lying on the sofa with a couple of scripts on his lap, and a highlighter uncapped on his knee. He bundled the papers together and capped the highlighter, putting them down on the coffee table. "Like, I'll be up all night."
> 
> Louis grinned and took advantage of the opportunity to sprawl out on top of Nick on the sofa. He was still in his jacket. He rubbed his cold nose over Nick's cheek. "Like, coffee. The grounds, or whatever you call them. Got you two bags from this place today."
> 
> "Oh," Nick said, as Louis kissed him. He was already sneaking cold hands under Nick's shirt. "All right. Thanks."
> 
> "'s'all right," Louis said. "Saw you were running out, so, like, I picked you some up."
> 
> "Boyfriendy thing to do, innit?"
> 
> "Well," Louis said. "It's our official three day anniversary. Everyone knows that on the third day, you get coffee grounds."
> 
> "Oh, well, if it's an anniversary present."
> 
> "What did you get for me?"
> 
> "Five gold rings," Nick said. "And if you go in the kitchen, there's four calling birds on the table. What's a calling bird, anyway?"
> 
> "No fucking idea," Louis said. "Where's my fucking pear tree?"
> 
> "Partridge nicked it. Thieving bastard."
> 
> Louis rubbed his cold nose over Nick's cheek again. "It's all right, this boyfriend thing, isn't it?" He'd gone a bit red. 
> 
> "Yeah," Nick said. He circled Louis's wrists with his fingers. "You're not going to want any swans-a-swimming, are you? I've heard they're a real bugger to get a firm grip on."
> 
> "We'll miss that day," Louis said. "Got to be different, though, hasn't it? Twelve Days of Officially Going Out. Can't be the same as Christmas."
> 
> "Five cock rings. Naked gymnastics with lords a leaping. I don't know."
> 
> "I haven't got five cocks, though."
> 
> Nick gave up and slid his hands under Louis's jumper and his jacket. Under all of his layers he was warm to the touch, and wriggly. Even though they'd been doing this for a good three months, he still kept forgetting how secretly ticklish Louis was. "One for every day of the week. Weekday cock rings. Like them socks you get for days of the week."
> 
> "What if we want to use them at weekends, though?" Louis asked, and Nick had to pretend he wasn't getting hard. It was tough, with Louis around, because it turned out Nick practically always wanted to have sex with him. "Do we steal, like, a Monday one? Could you get it up if you knew it was Tuesday's cock ring and we were using it on a Saturday?"
> 
> "Maybe we need to swap a few things around in that song." He made a failed attempt at singing seven cock rings. Louis took over and sung it perfectly. 
> 
> It might or might not have made Nick harder. 
> 
> Louis flopped back down and hid his face in Nick's neck. He licked at his throat. "Tired."
> 
> "Have you been busy all this time?"
> 
> Louis nodded, but didn't make any move to get up, or expand on that. 
> 
> "Lou."
> 
> "Kept thinking about this boyfriend I had at home," Louis said finally, voice muffled against Nick's skin. "That I wanted to come home to. You can laugh now."
> 
> "It's not funny," Nick said, and he stopped stroking Louis's back in favour of leaning up and running his fingers through Louis's hair instead. He stored away Louis calling Nick's flat home to think about later. "I kept trying to work out how long it would take you to get here from Elstree. Doing all these stupid sums about traffic and how much you'd overrun."
> 
> "We're both terrible," Louis said, shifting a little so he could lick Nick's jaw. "Take me to bed."
> 
> "Say please."
> 
> "Take me to bed, boyfriend," Louis said. "Please."
> 
> Nick cupped Louis's face in his hands, and kissed him. "All right, boyfriend," he said, and Louis laughed against his mouth and kissed him back. 

~*~

Nick goes back to work in the morning. He'd managed two hours sleep on the sofa in the family room, his phone charging with Harry's borrowed charger. He can't bear the idea of leaving Louis, not even for a minute, but the doctors say his condition has stabilised, and Nick has to have a moment to himself. He's going insane. Jay had broken down in floods of tears when the doctor had come to see them at three in the morning, and Dan had come at four, holding her close and joining her at sitting by his bedside. He can't fucking breathe. Every time he looks at Louis through the window into his room, it's like he's dying too. 

He needs to get out of here, if only for a bit. 

Work is a terrible idea, but it's the only one Nick can think of, so he gets home just after five to shower and put on fresh clothes. He stuffs some things into a bag, too, to go back to the hospital with. He puts that stupid teddy bear that Louis had bought him for a laugh on the top of his clothes, and doesn't let himself think about why. 

"You look terrible," Matt Fincham says, as he arrives at work, only just in time. "You really must have been poorly."

"What?" Nick says. He'd never told anyone at work about Louis. They'd never told anyone, the two of them clinging to this delicious, perfect secret like they were the two cleverest people in the world. Turns out they were the stupidest, because now Louis is hurt, and no one knows why Nick isn't holding it together. "Oh, right."

"Are you sure you should be back?" Matt asks. He looks concerned. Nick only has energy for Louis at the moment; work was a terrible idea. He feels sick. 

"Yeah," Nick says. "It's fine." 

The newspapers are spread over one of the desks in the corner, unread. He doesn't mean to go over, but he can't help himself. Louis's accident happened three days ago. _The Sun_ has Louis on the front cover, _**Louis condition critical**_ in big letters, next to a picture of Louis on stage a few weeks ago. His wrecked car is in a little picture indenting the text. _The Daily Mail_ has _**Harry in mercy dash for Lou**_ on the top banner, _Heat_ magazine has Louis on the cover. The _Mirror_ has an interview with Louis's real dad, who hasn't been at the hospital, _**vigil for Louis on page three**_ under the banner headline. There had been newspapers and photographers and fans outside the hospital; Nick had been shown a way out to a cab that had involved going down into the bowels of the hospital and out past corridors of rooms with odd symbols on the doors, biohazard and flammable and all the rest. 

"Get these out of here."

"Nick—"

"Burn them, I don't care. Get them out of here."

Nick's never given an instruction like that in his life. He goes to the toilet to splash water on his face, and when he comes back, they're gone. He takes the clipboard from Matt with the show running order on, and glances down it. There's too much talking. He can't talk. He just wants it over and done with. His hand shakes as he hands it back. "Add more songs," he says. "There, and there. We can fit a few more in today."

He finds his game face from somewhere, some hidden reserve of _the show must go on_ that he'd never known about, and the first hour of the show goes all right. He laughs and jokes and if the texts coming in say, _is Nick ok_? then it's not the end of the world. 

He gets a text from Gillian at 7.48. _You're on the mail website. Pictures from the hospital_ and the bottom drops out of Nick's world. Again. "Find another record to play," he tells Ian, because Matt's outside the studio, talking to Fiona in the corridor. Nick can't even type _daily mail_ into Google. His hands are shaking. 

It's the lead article on the homepage. _**Grimmy in secret vigil by Louis's bedside**_ **.** The pictures are taken from inside the hospital, Nick in the hallway outside the ICU the day before yesterday, head in his hands, crouching down by the row of chairs in the hall; Nick sitting on the plastic chairs in the hall when Jay had come to talk to him yesterday, the two of them looking devastated and tearful, Jay's hand on his shoulder; a terribly blurred picture taken through the door to Intensive Care of him and Jay waiting by the door to Louis's room. 

_Gay Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw has spent the past three days at the bedside of Louis Tomlinson, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal._

  * _Louis Tomlinson gay relationship?_
  * _Nick Grimshaw constantly at his bedside_
  * _Skipping work to be at the hospital_
  * _Pictures of Grimmy in family-only waiting room in ICU_
  * _Louis's mum and Grimmy united together in their pain_



_Louis Tomlinson, who was critically injured in a horrific car smash when his brand new, black 2014 Porsche 911 was involved in a collision with a lorry on the M25 on Sunday night, has been in a critical condition in Intensive Care since the accident. Tomlinson's bandmates, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, and Zayn Malik have all been seen at the hospital but tweets from Liam yesterday prove that Louis's condition was so severe that the only people allowed to visit Louis in Intensive Care have been Louis's mum, Jay Darling, and the eldest of Louis's sisters, Lottie. (inset: Lottie Tomlinson shows off her long legs in the garden in this picture from her Twitter)_

_Liam tweeted "thanks for all your thanks and prayers for Louis. Hes a brother to us all and were devestated knowing hes so poorly." And "we've been at the hospital but we couldnt go in to see him before today because hes to sick. Just Louiss mum. We're all together and cant thank our fans enough for their support and love." (sic) Harry Styles tweeted a simple "Thank you" to his fans for their outpouring of support. Harry—who many fans still believe is in a secret relationship with Louis Tomlinson—has been seen at the hospital multiple times since the hospital, but before yesterday had not been allowed in to sit by critically ill Louis's bedside._

_Louis's family—including his baby twin siblings, Ernest and Doris—are at Louis's house in North London waiting for news. (inset: Louis's mum Jay and her third baby father, Dan Deakin, show off a lot of skin in this sexy selfie)._

_Nick Grimshaw and Louis Tomlinson have had well-publicised Twitter spats in the past, but it's clear that their relationship goes far beyond this. Intensive care units limit visitors to close family and partners due to the significant care needs of patients, but as our intimate pictures reveal, Nick Grimshaw has been spending countless hours by Louis's bedside._

Nick doesn't read any more after that. 

"God," Matt says. "Nick—"

"Don't say a fucking word," Nick says. "If you say one thing I will break down, and I have a show to do." He's texting Harry under the desk, _daily mail,_ and, _I can't I can't I can't do this_. "And then I have to get back to the hospital because I've left him by himself."

Matt nods jerkily. "I had no idea."

"No one did," Nick says. He puts his headphones back on, and tries to focus on the show run in front of him. Vance Joy's _Riptide_ is coming to an end. It's almost time for him to fade back in. 

He gets through the next hour without breaking down or looking at the texts or his Twitter. He doesn't know how. Inside he's crumbling. His phone's blowing up. Harry shows up just before nine, and he waits until the link's finished before coming into the studio and wrapping his arms around Nick. 

Nick doesn't mean to cry, but he can't help it. Harry looks exhausted too, greasy-haired and thin, faded old sweatshirt and holey jeans. He smells like sweat and stale food. 

"It's okay," Harry says. "It's going to be okay."

"How the fuck can it be okay?" Nick asks, using Harry's sweatshirt to wipe his eyes. 

"I don't know," Harry says, and he stays close by Nick's side as Nick tries to get himself sorted out, and manages to do the link without sounding like he's about to break in two from the inside out. His chest feels like it's closing in on itself, and all he can think about is Louis in that bed, terrified and unable to move. 

"How is he?" Harry asks, in the next song. Fiona brings them both cups of tea even though they're not supposed to have drinks in the studio. 

"The same," Nick says. "Can't breathe by himself. Still on the ventilator. In a coma. More dead than alive. I don't know. I can't do this."

Matt makes a sound at that. Harry's hand tightens in Nick's. 

"God," Harry says, and he sounds broken too. All of them are broken, their lives revolving round Louis in all these different ways. 

Louis can't fucking die. He can't. He'd take down all these people with him, all of these people whose lives intersect with his. Nick can't even bear to think about it. 

"My car's here," Harry says. "I'll take you to the hospital when you're done."

"Fearne's here too," Matt says. "She's here early. She'll finish for you, if you want."

Nick wants to hug him. He's holding himself together by the skin of his teeth, though, and so he just nods, jerkily. "Yeah," he says. "I just—I should be at the hospital."

"I know," Matt says. "Go on."

~*~

Nick holds Harry's hand in the back of the car Harry's got for them. He looks out the window as they drive through the rush hour to the hospital; he doesn't have anything to say, not anymore. There's nothing left inside of him. 

~*~

Liam's in with Louis when they get to the hospital, and Harry joins him by the side of Louis's bed. Nick stands with Jay and watches the three of them through the window. 

"Have you heard about the _Mail_?" Nick asks. 

Jay stills. "No," she says. "This isn't going to be good, is it?"

There have been people from the record company and people from the management company dropping by for updates and speaking to Jay and the boys on the phone, but as far as Nick can tell, they've been quite good about not intruding. Now that Louis's condition is stabilising, Nick suspects that that's going to change. Especially given the article. "They've outed Louis," he says, still not looking away from where Harry is holding Louis's hand. "Or they've tried to. There are pictures of me here. They know it's been you and me in there with him."

"Where did they get the pictures from?"

"I don't know," Nick says. "Harry says that their lawyers are looking into it."

"Doesn't matter though, does it? My boy. It's the same for him, either way."

"I'd do anything for him," Nick says as steadily as he can manage. "When this is done I'll do whatever he wants me to do. Whatever that is."

She nods jerkily and doesn't say anything else. 

~*~

Nick doesn't return the voicemails from his publicist. He doesn't answer any of his messages, except for the one from his mum. He takes his phone into the disabled loo one floor up from ICU, where no one can see him cry, and he locks himself in and sobs down the phone to his mum. 

"Oh, love," she says finally. "My boy, my boy."

"Mum," he says. "Mum, what happens if he dies?"

"Well, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. Everything you've told me makes him sound like he's a strong one. A fighter. You wouldn't love anyone who wasn't."

"I don't think I've ever loved anyone," he says, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Just him."

"All the more reason for him to hang on, then," she says. "Look, do you want me to come down? Stay at the flat?"

He doesn't want to say yes. He just wants someone to lean on so, so much. "Please," he says. "Please, Mum."

"All right. I'll drive down tonight."

"You don't have to."

"Course I do," she says. "Do you need me to come to the hospital to get your keys?"

He shakes his head. "Emily's got a spare set." For a split second, he wonders what to tell Emily, if she'll ask where he is, and then he remembers that it won't matter. She'll know, now. Everyone knows. The _Mail_ will only be the beginning. "There'll be photographers at my flat, probably. They know where I live."

"Ah, like I can't manage a set of those awful newspapermen. They're not going to want pictures of me, anyway. They won't know who I am. Now, how do I find this Emily?"

"I'll text you her number," he says. "Will you—will you call her?" He can't. The logistics of organising this are too much. His boyfriend—his lovely, lovely boyfriend—has been outed, and he won't fucking wake up, and Nick can't think about how to get his flat keys to his mum. He just wants her here now. He hasn't needed her like this in years. Years and years. "God, Mum. Will you just get here?"

Her voice catches. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Just you be strong for that boy of yours. He'll need all your strength as well as his own if he's as poorly as I think he is."

"His pants are in my washing machine. They'll have all gone mouldy."

"Don't you worry about that. That's what mums are for. We'll get them all clean for him for when he comes out of hospital."

"God," Nick says again, and this toilet isn't clean and all he can smell on his skin is hospital, fucking hospital, but he sinks down until he's sitting down on the floor, back to the wall. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just—I really love him."

"Stop your worrying about me," she says. "Text me your friend's number and I'll sort out the rest. Go and give that boy of yours a kiss from me and your dad."

If he sits there for another ten minutes after he's hung up the phone, then it's only because he can't stop shaking. 

~*~

He goes home that night, leaving Louis in Harry and Jay and Liam's capable hands. Guilt eats away at him, even as he gets in his car, trying to ignore the endless flashbulbs of the photographers as he tries to get out of the car park. They follow him home too, tailing him as he drives back into London, exhausted and making stupid, stupid mistakes every time he has to make a road decision. Accidents happen so easily, is the thing. Knowing that just makes it all harder, and his driving worse.

There are photographers outside the flat as well, and he barrels through them, trying to ignore the shouts of, _so Louis is a poof then,_ and _who does who up the arse?_ Because they're trying to get a reaction, he knows that, and it would be so, so easy to give into it. He's too tired not to care. 

Instead, he makes it inside, where his mum's waiting for him with Emily and Pig and the shutters all closed against the outside world, and then he makes a dash for the bathroom and throws up vending machine crisps and canteen sandwiches. 

"There you go, love," his mum says, stroking his back. He's crying. "Let it all out. You're safe inside." Pig crawls into his lap and licks his face. He hugs her too hard, but she doesn't wriggle away, curling up against his chest and licking his throat. His lovely, lovely dog. 

His boyfriend, who might be dying in a hospital bed. 

His mum gathers him up into a hug and lets him cry. 

~*~

The rest of the papers have it the following morning. _**LOUIS GAY**_ and _**LOUIS AND GRIMMY**_ and _**GAY 1D STAR STILL CRITICAL**_. Nick flicks from one website to another, not bothering to read all the articles. All the gossip sites have it, including more and more pictures from the hospital, and Tumblr have pictures of the two of them in Tesco last month, and comparison pictures of Nick wearing what they think is Louis's hoodie to walk his dog. It's not, but he knows what Tumblr doesn't: that in that picture, he's wearing a pair of Louis's pants under his jeans. 

Matt's organised a car for him to take him to work, so at least there don't have to be any more near misses with white vans as he fails to pay due care and attention to the road. 

His mum comes in with him. "Moral support," she says, refusing to take no for an answer. 

"They'll say awful things," Nick says. "I don't want you to hear that."

"Nicholas, I was not brought up in a cave. I do know about the real world. I'm unshockable."

She tucks her hand into his arm and holds on pretty tightly as they leave though, flinching as they yell _so he's a queer then_ and _did you turn him?_ and _everyone knew he was a poofter_ and _fucking shirtlifters_. 

He's not got the energy to hide his reaction, and he's fairly sure his mum's is written all over her face. 

What's it matter, anyway? Nick was gay yesterday and he'll still be gay tomorrow. Louis was with him last week and if Nick has his way, he'll be with him next week too. It just feels like there are bigger fish to fry right now than who has the most column inches on him and Louis being boyfriends.  
Nevertheless, he wraps an arm around his mum's shoulders when they're in the car. 

"Thanks," he says. 

She's shaking. "Vultures," she says. "They're vultures."

"I know," he says. He waits a beat. "I think Louis was terrified of this, you know. The things they'd say."

"Maybe they'll have got bored of it by the time he comes out of hospital. That's the way it works, isn't it? Tomorrow's chip paper."

"Don't think they put chips in newspaper anymore. It's all on the internet. Forever."

"They should use them for chips. All they're good for." She pats the back of his hand. "How are you doing?"

"No idea." He's so used to feeling constantly sick and on edge and scared. It feels like he's stepped out of his own life to slide into this one, everything focused on hospital, and Louis unconscious in the middle of it. He can't even look at his phone, at the endless messages from his friends. They're his found family, his friends, but right now he just doesn't have the energy to even text them back. "Just...I don't know. Getting through it."

It's all he can do. 

~*~

He gets a text message from Jay just before the show ends. 

_Think he's waking up._

Nick hugs his mum whilst Olly Murs plays, and then he does his final link and tries not to let his voice shake. It doesn't work, and all the texts are from people saying _omg is nick alright is it Louis what's happened_. He doesn't look at them, and he doesn't do a proper handover to Fearne. He's already half way out the door. "Mum, sorry, they might not let you in—"

"I'll drop her off at yours," Matt says, and he tugs Nick into a hug. "Don't worry."

Nick can't help it, is the thing. 

~*~

Louis is still on the ventilator, the tube still down his throat so he can't talk. They're keeping him so sedated that it's almost like he's asleep anyway, but Nick gets to sit by his bedside before lunch and see Louis open his eyes for him. 

Nick doesn't mean to cry, but the tears are running down his face even as Louis is sleepily blinking. 

"Hi, Lou," he says. "Hiya, love. Hiya."

Louis blinks so slowly that Nick's half sure that Louis is asleep again, but he's not. He's there. Their beautiful, amazing boy. 

"You are in such trouble," Nick says. "Me and your mum are going to give you what for, worrying us like this."

He blinks again, sleepy as anything. Nick hopes he's not that aware of what's going on; he's got a tube down his throat and one coming out of his chest and another out of his stomach and he's covered in bruises and cuts. He's so broken. Nick can only hope that he's not in any pain. 

"I love you so much," Nick says. "I never told you before because I'm an idiot and I was trying to be cool, but I'm never cool. I never want to be cool again. I'm just going to keep telling you I love you. You'll be amazed by how emotionally coherent I'm going to be from here on in."

Louis is in there, somewhere. He blinks again, so terribly sleepy and out of it, his pupils huge. 

"It's time to get better, baby," Nick says, and he wipes his eyes on his sleeve. 

This time, when Louis closes his eyes, he doesn't open them again. 

Nick stays by his bedside until the middle of the afternoon, when Jay gets back from the hotel where she'd gone for a shower and a change of clothes and something to eat. He's not been here by himself before; it's the kind of responsibility that eats him up inside. The idea that Louis could die here today, with just Nick by his bedside—it's desperately painful. Nick holds Louis's hot hand in his and waits for him to wake up again. 

He falls asleep with his cheek pillowed against Louis's sheets, Louis's hand still in his. 

~*~

It's Zayn who wakes him up. "Someone wants to see you," he says, gently rubbing Nick's shoulder, and when Nick startles awake, Louis's eyes are open again, dark and out of it, but with the glaze of recognition. 

"Hi, love," Nick says. He doesn't mean to cry again. The tears just start to slide without his permission, because he hates this. He hates this so much. He just wants his Louis back, not this shell of a memory of him, in pieces on the bed in front of him. "Hiya, Louis, love."

Louis blinks again. He can't move because of the sedatives and the tube down his throat, but Nick is sure he feels his finger twitch. "Zayn's here too," Nick says, and Louis just blinks sleepily, and Nick has no idea if he can understand him or not. "Everyone wants you to hurry up and get better."

"We all love you, mate," Zayn says, hand out like he doesn't know where to touch Louis where he isn't broken. There's nowhere, other than the hand Nick's still holding, and even that has a drip attached and an oxygen thing clipped to his finger. He ends up covering Nick's hand with his own, and Nick wants to sink to the floor and sob with it all. Every part of Louis is so broken, and the wound drain still has blood in it, and Nick wants all of this to end. He wants Louis home and in his bed. 

They stay there, the three of them, until Louis's eyes flutter shut again. The two of them stay by Louis's bedside until the nurse comes in to take some blood tests. Then they stand outside the room, staring in at the closed curtains as the nurse does something to Louis inside. 

"How are you holding up?" Zayn asks, after a minute. 

"I can't bear it," Nick says, because he can't. "I can't do this. I don't know how to do it anymore. I'm so tired. I want him back. I want him back so much it hurts."

He doesn't even know if he's still crying. He wants eleven hours sleep and Louis in the bed next to him. He's not even friends with Zayn, but somehow he ends up sobbing into Zayn's shoulder, chest heaving, crying so hard he can't breathe, snot everywhere. He cries so much his head hurts and his legs shake with it, and it doesn't make the pain in his heart lessen even one tiny, tiny bit. 

He wants his Louis back. 

~*~

Nick spends most of the next three days at the hospital, going home to his mum in between times. For the first time in his life, he's not reading the gossip about him in the newspapers. He speaks to his publicist, and the two of them have three or four sessions with Louis's lawyers and publicists that would be horrendous if it wasn't for the fact that Nick couldn't give a shit about what story they give the press about him and Louis. Jay guards Louis like a Rottweiler, and they end up having a shouting match in the waiting room because neither of them can quite believe they're having to spin Louis's love life when he's still in Intensive fucking Care. They still might lose him; he's still critically ill, even if he has stabilised. Afterwards they cry on each other, and Nick can't help but wonder if at some point it's all going to dry up, and he's going to stop acting like a leaking tap. 

Later still, when the curtains are closed around Louis's bed, Nick shows her the photos he has on his phone of him and Louis, of Louis laughing at Nick, of the two of them taking a selfie whilst pulling stupid faces, of Louis asleep with his cheek pillowed on Nick's thigh. 

"He looks happy," Jay says. "Were you?"

Nick nods. "It was the best secret I ever kept," he says. "I wish we'd never kept it, but we did. It was always fantastic with him. He made me laugh all the time. I don't know." He pauses. "I don't know if he was as serious about me as I was about him. Turns out I really love him."

"He doesn't go into anything half-cocked. He's always been serious about stuff like this. His girlfriends... They were always serious. His friends always used to go out with loads of girls, but he only ever wanted long term. If he was with you at all, he was in it for the long term. He's scared of saying it sometimes."

He nods again. His eyes are swimming.

When they're allowed back in to Louis's room, his wound drain is still full of red, but they've taken out the chest tube they'd put in during the surgery on his punctured lung. He's still covered in yellowing bruises. His poor broken ribs. 

They're talking about trying to take him off the ventilator the next day. Nick holds Louis's hand and watches him sleepily blink awake and fall back asleep again. He can't listen to what the doctor's saying. His boyfriend can't even breathe on his own, and there's a good chance that when they try and take him off the ventilator, it won't work and he'll still need a machine to breathe for him. 

When does it all become too much? When does it turn into something that he just can't deal with? Because it feels like every time he comes in, it's just one thing after another, and the weight of it is killing him. 

~*~

There are a lot of people waiting outside Radio 1 for him, and a lot of paps too, considering it's before six in the morning, and him and Louis being a thing is almost old news. There's security waiting for him to escort him into the building, and Matt's waiting for him by the lifts. 

"Don't," Nick says, when Matt takes an abortive step towards him. People can still see in from outside, and there are people milling round reception even though it's early. He holds up a hand. "I've just said bye to my mum. Just—not here."

"Fine," Matt says, and ushers him into the lift. He waits until the doors have slid closed. "How are you doing? Has your mum gone home?"

"She's going this morning. If Louis is still bad next week, she'll come back down. But—he still can't breathe by himself," Nick says. "I don't—I can't talk about him and then do the show, you know? Just, ask me later."

He can't do the show if he's thinking about Louis; he just can't. God, he's so tired. He's so, so tired. 

~*~

They get a caller on before the eight o'clock news; they're all being briefed to stick to topic and just be bright and cheery, but this girl takes it up a notch. She's like a breath of fresh air, talking about how this one time when she was doing her hairdressing course at college, she'd dyed this lady's hair completely green instead of just doing her roots brown, and how everyone had called her Frenchie ever since. 

"Nice one," Nick says, and if he focuses on the next link and nothing else then he doesn't have to think about his boyfriend in hospital. "Are you better at it now, the hairdressing? You're not dying people's hair blue or whatever now, are you? Unless they're a nan, they like their blue hair, don't they? No flipping idea why. Can you ask? Why nans like a blue rinse?"

"I'll ask them," she says. Her name's Nadine. "Can I come back on and tell you?"

"Course you can, Nadine, love. We need a resident hairdresser, don't we? Finchy's always up for a hair cut. You'd like to go green, wouldn't you? We'll get Nadine in, get her to do a team style. I could go pink again. No, actually, no way. I hated that. I looked like pink Angel Delight. Can you still get Angel Delight? It was always a treat, Angel Delight."

"No idea," Nadine says. "I'm going down the shops later, I'll check." 

"It was never as good as you wanted it to be, though, Angel Delight." Nick tries to laugh. The show probably sounds forced. He's doing his best. "Well, Nadine, thank you for telling us that story. Are you hairdressing today? Ask loads of people about their holidays, won't you? That's the only time I talk about my holiday, down the hairdressers."

"I will. And tell Louis we all want him to get better soon, won't you?"

Nick falters. He opens his mouth but he can't think of anything to say; anything he says just further outs Louis, but maybe that doesn't matter anymore.

Ian makes a grab for the microphone, but it's too late. Nick's already saying, "I'll tell him." He sounds choked up. He's going to cry. It's crashing into him with the inevitability of a freight train going at speed. "Thanks—" He forgets her name, and trails off. "Thanks."

"Right, bye, Nadine," Matt's saying, but she's already cut off, and replaced with the new Taylor Swift single. 

Nick looks down at his lap. He tries not to cry. Fiona wraps her arms around his shoulders, and Ian rubs his back, and neither of them say that Nick should have told them. There's a list of people Nick should have told that he had a boyfriend, and that that boyfriend was Louis, and Fiona and Ian and Matt aren't at the top. 

There are a lot of people he has to explain things to. Just—not yet. Not yet. 

Louis has to get better first. 

~*~

They try to take Louis off the ventilator that afternoon. 

He doesn't react well to breathing on his own and they have to put the tube back down his throat. They sedate him after that, and Nick cycles in and out of Louis's ICU room with the rest of Louis's family and his band and his close friends for the rest of the evening. Jay looks drawn, and Lottie looks distraught, and the gossip websites are all running with even more conjecture about Nick and Louis's relationship. 

No one's talking about that. 

Nick's publicist is calling him twice an hour, and Louis's publicists are calling as well, and they're all desperate for him to give some kind of interview. He just can't. Liam and Niall have already given a couple of statements, Harry and Zayn quiet behind them. Nick can't think about standing in front of a camera and talking about how much he loves Louis; the next person he says that to should be Louis himself. 

Nick puts his head in his hands and tries to remember how to breathe. He wishes Louis was awake and aware enough to hear Nick say it. 

The hours pass like sludge. Time slows down and starts to go backwards. Nick falls asleep early in the evening on a fold out bed in the corner of the waiting room. He wakes up underneath a scratchy hospital blanket and Jay, Harry, Lottie and Liam sitting around him, drinking cups of bad hospital tea and not saying much. Mark's in with Louis.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Nick says, rolling over. "I didn't mean to go to sleep."

"You needed it," Jay says. She looks like she's the walking dead. Dan keeps bringing the babies in, and it must be tearing Jay apart not to be with them, but it's just one more thing that no one had told him about when you're in hospital watching a loved one cling to life: the world keeps on turning outside these four walls. It doesn't stop just because Nick's heart is locked in this room.

"Any news?"

"They're going to try taking him off the ventilator in the morning again."

"But what if he can't breathe? What if he's in pain and he can't—"

Jay looks exhausted. "They'll put him back on the ventilator and then they'll try again. If it doesn't work they'll do a tracheostomy and insert the breathing tube directly into his windpipe."

"I don't know what that is." Lottie is clinging to her mum's hand. She won't look up. She won't look Nick in the face. 

"They'll be a tube coming out of his throat to help him breathe."

Nick nods. He looks down at his lap. "All right." He doesn't ask what will happen if Louis can't breathe by himself ever. He doesn't ask when they stop trying to take it out. It's terrifying and awful and it hurts. It hurts. 

He's exhausted and he smells like hospital and chemicals and sanitizer and sleep. He smells like Louis's hospital room, but Louis doesn't smell like Louis at all. When it's his turn to sit with Louis, he sits down in the seat by Louis's bedside, and tries not to think about whether Louis will ever be able to breathe again. His other arm is still in a cast, as are his legs, and there are stitches in his arm and on his cheek and on his chest and neck and hairline. His chest is still black and blue from the broken ribs. Nick hadn't heard of a pneumothorax before Louis had had it. Like, maybe on Casualty or Holby City, but they weren't real life. They weren't Louis. At least the tube's gone from his chest, even if the wound drain hasn't. He's going to have abdominal scarring from the surgery on his liver and his spleen, a long line down the centre of his stomach that opens up a little at the bottom. 

"I love you," he says, holding Louis's hot fingers in his. "I love you so much, you stupid, wonderful thing. Just get better. Please, please get better. I can't do this without you."

It's the first time he's considered what it might be like without him. 

~*~ 

They wait until he's back at the hospital after work the following morning before they try to take Louis off the ventilator again. Nick had kind of assumed that they'd keep trying to see if he could breathe by himself, but Jay shakes her head at that, sad and exhausted. 

"It's traumatic," she says. "Intubating him again. He's not strong." 

Nick knows that Louis isn't strong. He's been in Intensive Care for days and days, and even though Louis is awake, Nick's not even all that sure that Louis knows who they all are. They just hold Louis's hand and hope for the best. "How traumatic?" he asks finally, because he can't not. 

"Imagine putting a tube down your throat," she says, turning back around to stare through the window into Louis's room, where the Intensive Care team are getting Louis ready to try extubating again. "And then imagine taking it out and putting it back in. And then imagine doing that when you're as sick as Lou."

Nick reaches for her hand. The minutes stretch out like endless mountains. Lottie and Liam come back from the canteen with cups of tea and little paper bags full of toast. 

They end up forgotten about on the table in the corner. In the end, Liam offers them to the room next door, where a mum and dad are watching their only daughter slowly fade away. Nick's stood next to the dad in the toilets, the two of them staring into the mirror and trying to work out how their lives had got to this point. Nick can't remember his name. 

The daughter is called Faiza. She's seventeen. She's dying. 

Nick's not entirely sure he's ever going to be the same again after this. 

"Nick," Jay says. Her voice catches. "Nick."

They're ready to start the procedure. 

Louis coughs a lot as they take the tube out. It breaks Nick's heart, and Jay almost breaks Nick's hand, she's squeezing so hard. 

"Come on, come on," she keeps saying, as they watch the doctors settle Louis through the window. They don't put the breathing tube back down his throat again, and Nick can't allow himself to breathe, he can't, but he's praying to a god he's not even sure he believes in to let Louis be okay. "Come on, baby. Just breathe. Breathe." Lottie can't even look; she's got her face buried in Jay's shoulder. 

"They're not putting the tube back in," Liam says, and Nick can't let himself believe that, he can't, but Jay's crying, and so's Lottie, and then he finds himself hugging Liam, and Liam's hugging him back. Please, please, please let him be okay. Please. 

The doctor comes out after a while. "He's breathing by himself," he says, and Nick's sure his knees start to buckle. 

"Is he going to be all right?" Liam asks. It's the question Nick wants the answer to but can't bear to ask. He's leaning too much on Liam. He's not sure he could stand on his own. 

The doctor looks tired. "He's still very ill, but he's stable. He's breathing by himself, and we'll keep an eye on him for the next few hours. There's a possibility, if everything goes to plan, that we might be able to move him into HDU this evening or tomorrow."

"HDU?" Lottie asks. 

"A high dependency unit," Jay says. "He'll be out of Intensive Care."

"Hopefully," the doctor says. "We'll keep an eye on him for the next few hours, but he's a fighter."

Nick's always known that. He's known it in his soul. He just hadn't known if this was a battle he could win. "Can we see him?"

"He's had a lot of analgesia," the doctor warns. "He'll be very, very drowsy."

"What's the prognosis?" Jay asks. "If you're moving into HDU, when do you think they'll do the orthopaedic surgery?"

Nick makes a soft, desperate noise in his throat. 

"What surgery?" Liam looks bewildered.

"They couldn't do it before," Jay says. "He needs pins put in his legs."

There isn't any bit of him that isn't broken. Nick's not sure he can bear it. He'd almost forgotten that they couldn't do everything they needed to, that first night in the hospital. That they'd had to leave the non-essential parts for another time. That Louis is broken. So, so broken.

"I want to see him," Jay says, and Nick wants to fight her for the right, but he doesn't. He stays quiet as Jay and Lottie go in, hand in hand, and Liam wraps his arms around Nick's shoulders and cries into Nick's neck. 

Nick doesn't cry. He feels tired and empty and dry inside. He's so—exhausted. He wants his boyfriend back, wants him to be sarcastic and terrible and a ball of unrelenting, loud, desperate energy. He wants him to make cups of tea, and complain about Nick's cups of tea, and shove his smelly feet under Nick's nose and tickle him when he's watching the telly. He wants to kiss him until he's breathless, and bicker over cereal, and stroke his fingertips over Louis's ribs until he trembles. He wants to tell him he loves him, and for Louis to hear. 

He wants Louis to be able to say it back. 

He stares through the window at Louis and Lottie and Jay, at Louis without a tube down his throat for the first time in days, small and broken and out of it. 

He wants him back. 

It's another half an hour before he gets to see Louis. Harry arrives with Niall and Zayn, and Nick lets them go in first, the four of them rotating so that they can all tell Louis that they love him. 

He stands by the door and doesn't drink his terrible hospital coffee. The room behind him is busy, Louis's family and his band. Doris and Ernest are here, and there's a handover of expressed milk, and Jay keeps hugging her babies, and there's a family here, an extended family that includes Louis's band, and Nick's not included. 

Harry comes over. Zayn and Niall are in with Louis. 

"Go on," Harry says. "Go in."

Nick nods, but he doesn't move. "I'm scared," he says, after a minute. "I'm so fucking scared."

"Of Lou?" Harry looks tired, but he smiles anyway. "He's all bark. He's a puppy underneath."

Nick knows that. He knows a gentler, quieter side of Louis. He knows the side he keeps secret from everyone; the one where Louis knows how Nick takes his coffee, and what kind of Danish pastry from the bakery in Morrisons is Nick's favourite. He knows him when he's sleepy and only half-woken up, when he's dressed in Nick's too-long tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, when he cups his tea with both hands and sleepily curls into Nick's side. Nick knows the right amount of milk to put in Louis's tea now. 

He knows that Louis talks in his sleep, and he knows that those really are the conversations he'll keep, the secrets that he and Louis have alone. He knows what Louis tastes like when he comes, and the way it feels when he smiles against Nick's mouth. 

Nick has been in and out of here for days and days, and is in all the papers, and Louis is completely outed, and Louis didn't get a say in any of that. He didn't get to pick about coming out, and he didn't get to pick about coming out with _Nick_ , and Nick is terrified that he's going to go in there and see Louis awake, and Louis isn't going to want anything to do with him. 

He's so, so tired, is the thing. He's so tired. 

"Do you want me to come in with you?" Harry asks, after a minute. 

Nick nods. "All right." Harry tucks his hand into Nick's. Nick can't help but squeeze back. 

Zayn and Niall give up their seats for Harry and Nick, and Nick can't miss the way that they watch him take Louis's hand as they go back out to join the others. Louis is awake, but very drowsy; he blinks a little at Nick, and doesn't look past him towards Harry. 

"Hiya, love," Nick says. "Long time, no see."

The corners of Louis's mouth turn up, just a little. Nick leans in to press a kiss to the tips of Louis's fingers. Louis's fingers twitch. 

"Nice to see you back in the land of the living," Nick goes on, because he's not sure if he can read recognition in Louis's eyes or not. Part of him wants to laugh, and keep laughing, but there's a part of him that wants to hide in the corner and not come out. "Look at you, extubated for five seconds and they're already going to move you into HDU. High achiever, or what? Harry's here too." The doctor says they need the ICU bed. Nick doesn't know if that means he's actually well enough to leave or not. He hopes he is. Louis blinks at Harry. "Everyone's here, mostly. We might as well move into that waiting room. Hope they've got one like it in HDU, otherwise we'll be sending people home so we can sleep on the wards."

Louis doesn't smile. He doesn't do much other than blink sleepily at them both. 

"God, Lou," Nick says finally. "I've missed you so much."

"Nick," Louis says, slow and painful and hoarse. His voice sounds wrecked. 

"Hi, babe," Nick says, and he knows he's crying. 

Next to him, Harry's breath hitches. 

They stay with him until he falls asleep, until he drifts away between one breath and the next, and then afterwards, Nick goes to stand in the middle of the waiting room and tries not to break down. 

~*~

>   
>  "I'm hungry," Louis said, kicking Nick in the thigh. 
> 
> "Would you like a prize?" Nick was trying to finish an email. Admin was the worst part of his life, and he was terminally crap at it. "Or a medal?"
> 
> "No, I want you to make me something."
> 
> "What did your last servant die of?"
> 
> "Laziness," Louis said. He kicked at Nick's thigh again. "Hurry up and finish, and I'll blow you if you'll make me a sandwich."
> 
> "Promises, promises." Nick finished his email and pressed send before dumping his laptop down on the table. "Can't you amuse yourself for five seconds?"
> 
> "Nope." Louis put his phone down on the floor, and crawled into Nick's lap, sliding his hands into Nick's hair. "I'm bored. Entertain me."
> 
> "Thought you wanted me to make you a sandwich."
> 
> Louis rolled his eyes and nipped at the end of Nick's nose with his teeth. Weirdo. "I want you to make me a sandwich _and_ entertain me."
> 
> Nick laughed. "All right. Blow me," he said, "and I'll make you lunch."
> 
> "What do I get for giving you a cheeky finger at the same time?"
> 
> "Whatever you want," Nick said, pulling him close for a kiss. He slid his hands under Louis's top, pulling it up and over his head. He stroked his thumbs over Louis's nipples, feeling them tighten up beneath his touch. He ducked his head down to take one in his teeth so that Louis gasped. "I'll go to the fucking shop and buy you whatever you want to eat."
> 
> "Bribery," Louis said, already undoing the buttons on Nick's jeans, "will get you everywhere."

~*~

They move him into the High Dependency Unit midway through the following evening, Nick and Jay trying to collect up all their detritus from days spent in the ICU waiting room as they decamp two floors away to the HDU. 

They practically jog down the corridors after the porters, trailing carrier bags and blankets and get well cards. But then when they get there, they're just made to wait. They're always waiting. 

Nick's never been known for his patience. 

This isn't how Nick expected it to go, the two of them relegated to a corridor again as they make Louis comfortable in a little room in HDU. It takes far too long, and worry starts to spike in Nick's chest. 

"What's wrong?" he asks, as Jay tries to peer worriedly through the closed door. "Have they moved him too early?" 

"I don't know," Jay says. She looks at her watch. "They're going to throw us out, you know. Another forty minutes, and that's visiting hours over."

"Christ." They hadn't had to think about visiting hours in ICU. Jay's been there practically since the beginning, and Nick most of the time since. The idea of being thrown out, of having to leave Louis alone and sick, is terrible. "They won't make us go without seeing him, will they?"

"I don't know. Depends. Depends who else is in the unit, I suppose. And how much time and energy they can devote to working with us."

"I'm not going without seeing him."

Jay looks worn out and almost past the point of collapse. "It probably won't come to that," she says. 

Nick concentrates on sorting their bags out, the piles of cards that Louis couldn't have in his ICU room because of the germs. The flowers that he hadn't seen for the same reason. Jay had suggested taking some of them to the geriatric wards, and Liam and Zayn had got rid of most of them earlier. It's just the two of them now, Jay and Nick, everyone else poised at the end of their phone just in case it all goes to shit again. 

Nick can't cope if it goes wrong again. 

In the end, they get fifteen minutes with Louis before the nurses ask them to leave for the night. Nick puts a couple of Louis's cards up on the bedside table, and puts the rest in the drawer by his bed. Louis is still incredibly drowsy, his attention wandering in and out of conversations, and even though it's clear Louis isn't really with them, it turns out he and Jay can't bring themselves to leave. 

"Come on, now," the ward sister says, when they've stayed ten minutes past their agreement. "We've got Louis comfortable, and we'll let you know if anything happens or changes."

"Will it?" Nick asks. At least Jay knows the medical stuff. Nick barely knows how to put a plaster on. 

"We'll monitor him very closely, Mr Grimshaw." Someone who reads the papers, then. 

"When can we come back?"

"Visiting hours are from one until eight," she says. "You can call in the morning to find out how he's doing."

"What time?" Nick asks. Louis is already asleep, still in his oxygen mask. "And how many of us at any one time?"

"This isn't a normal ward, Mr Grimshaw. Our patients are high dependency. Two visitors to a bed. Call mid-morning and we'll be able to tell you what the doctors have said after their rounds."

"All right," Nick says. "I will."

Afterwards, when they're finally leaving the hospital together for the first time, Jay starts to cry in the lift, great gulping sobs that come with desperate twists of breath. 

"It'll be all right," Nick says helplessly, because he feels like that too, like they've left Louis alone and unloved in his hospital bed. Like without them, if anything happens, Louis will be alone for it. Alone, and unloved. 

It's almost too much to bear. 

~*~

He does the radio in the morning. It goes all right. He's still not on form but he doesn't know how to fix that. Afterwards, he goes to the after-show meeting, and fails to participate all that much, then after that, he calls the hospital. They refuse to tell him anything because he's not family, and it's only by grace of god that he doesn't smash his fucking phone into pieces. 

He calls Harry instead, because he doesn't fucking have Jay's number, and then he stands and paces the office until Jay calls him back. 

"He's all right," Jay says. "He had a reasonable night, all things considered, and they're waiting for the physiotherapists to come round. Now he's breathing for himself, he's going to have to deal with his broken ribs. He's on a lot of pain medication, but he's still going to have to learn how to breathe through the pain. The physios will help him with that."

"Right," Nick says, because every single time he thinks about Louis, another thing comes along to make everything worse again. "What about everything else?"

"No news on the surgery on his legs," Jay goes on. Her voice wobbles. "They'll schedule that for as soon as they take out the abdominal drain."

"Christ," Nick says. "When's that going to be?"

"The next couple of days, hopefully. It might be longer. He was hurt very badly."

"I know," Nick says. "Is there—god. I called and they wouldn't talk to me."

"I'll tell them you're his partner," Jay says. "When I go in. Make sure it won't happen again."

Nick lets out a breath. "Thanks," he says. "When are you going in?"

"I thought—well. Mid-afternoon, maybe. Take the girls. Daisy and Phoebe have been desperate to see him. Fizz is still refusing. I'm going to see if Mark can persuade her to come later. Dan's coming with me, and he'll take the girls home afterwards. But only if you'll be there from one. I don't want him to be alone. The boys say they'll come in the evening. Or Harry did, when he called."

"One's fine," Nick says, peeking out through the blinds down at the paparazzi waiting downstairs. He's almost used to them now, the relentless hell of being followed and photographed and talked about endlessly. "I was going to be there then anyway." He can't think of anything else he'd be doing instead. His life has shrunk down to just Louis in his hospital bed. 

"Tell him I love him," Jay says softly, and Nick's voice catches. 

"Will do," he says. "Will do."

~*~

He's waiting outside HDU at five to one. There's a guy down the end of the corridor taking pictures on his mobile phone. Nick looks down at the ground and doesn't make eye contact; he's not going to hide and risk missing a minute with Louis. The guy can put the pictures where he wants; Nick's given up caring. Everyone else is talking about them; what does one more photograph matter? He'd checked Twitter earlier; it's still ninety-nine per cent homophobic abuse. That grows old fairly quickly. 

They open the doors a couple of minutes past one; Nick and the three or four other people out in the corridor surge inside, and Nick's heart pounds as he pushes open the door to Louis's room. 

_Please, please let him be okay_. 

Louis is not okay. He's asleep, for a start, still covered in bruises and cuts and broken bits, a tube still coming out of his side into a wound drain hanging off the side of the bed. There's still a clear seatbelt line of bruises across his chest, even if they're yellowed and purpled after over a week in hospital. There's still a massive, still-raw, stitched-up incision running down the length of his abdomen. 

The oxygen mask has gone, though, replaced with a tube that goes into Louis's nose but hooks round his ears. 

Nick busies himself tidying up Louis's bedside table, getting rid of some of the detritus that they'd managed to leave the night before. He takes his coat off and hangs it over the back of the second chair, and then he sits down by the side of Louis's bed, and covers Louis's fingers with his own. 

He's not going anywhere. He can wait. 

Louis wakes up after an hour or so, his eyes fluttering open. Nick's reading a year old copy of _Grazia_ he'd found on the radiator by the toilet down the corridor.

"Nick—" Louis says, voice slow and rough and wrecked. "Nick."

"Hey," Nick says. "Don't talk. It's okay. Not if it hurts. It's all right."

A tear slides out of Louis's eye and down towards his ear. Nick leans over and wipes it away with a tissue. 

"Don't cry, love," he says. "What's there to cry about?"

"Scared," Louis says.

Nick's eyes swim. He blinks furiously, but he can't hold the tears in. He scrubs at his eyes with his wrist. "There's nothing to be scared of," he says. "You've got the best care, love, all these nurses and doctors catering to your every whim. Almost like you're royalty, or summat. Bet Kate Middleton didn't get the attention you've had, this last however how long." The days have all blurred into each other, but he shouldn't have said that. Louis's brow furrows at _this last however how long_. Nick has to lean over and stroke his fingers over Louis's forehead. "It's all right, love. Don't fret. Your mum will be here soon, and until then you've got my ugly mug, and everyone sends their love, and we're going to make sure you've got nothing to be scared of. We're all going to be here, looking out for you. We all love you." It's the hardest thing he's ever had to say. "I love you. I properly, properly love you. I'm sorry I never told you before."

"Hurts..." Louis says, "to breathe."

God, this hurts Nick inside. "I know, baby. You've got broken ribs. I know it hurts." He's got no fucking idea how much. He can't do anything other than stroke Louis's hair away from his face. "Does it hurt a lot? I could get the nurse."

"Hurts," Louis manages. Another tear escapes. Nick's about ready to give in and sob himself. 

"All right, darling. I'll go and see the nurse. I won't be a minute." He leans in and kisses Louis's temple. Louis still doesn't taste the way Louis should. He tastes like chemicals and hospitals and sickness. 

His voice catches when he gets to the nurses' station. He doesn't mean it to. 

"Louis's in pain," he says. "Can you—please. It's hurting him."

The nurse is fierce and tall and looks tired. She has orange hair in a tight plait. "He has a PCA," she says, but she starts to put her things to one side. 

"I don't know what that is," Nick says. God, it feels like he's on the edge of an asthma attack. His breath's all tight in his chest. 

"Patient controlled analgesia," she says. "There's a button he can press. I'll come and see him."

Nick wants to wheeze. He can't catch his breath. He follows the nurse back to Louis's room and drops to the seat next to Louis's bed. He tries his best to smile. 

"How are you feeling, Louis?" she asks, checking some of the machines by his head. "Did you try pressing the button?"

There's a button that Nick hadn't noticed, a little clicker with a wire that's clipped to the bed by Louis's hand. 

Louis shakes his head.

"Well, you can still have more. Press the button. Let me have a look at you, shall I? See if we can't make you a bit more comfortable." She turns to Nick. "Would you mind waiting outside for a minute? Give Louis a spot of privacy whilst I get him settled."

Nick nods and he leans over to kiss Louis's forehead. Then he goes to stand in the corridor with his bag, and desperately tries to find his inhaler in amongst all of the rest of his crap in there. He's still in the corridor when Jay arrives, only he's wheezing properly now, starting to panic because his hands are shaking and he can't get the clasps undone on the front pockets of his bag, and he can't find his inhaler. 

"Calm down," she says, helping him to a seat. "Breathe slowly for me. Is your inhaler in your bag?"

"Can't find it," he manages. 

Jay crouches down next to him, and tips his bag up so that all of his stuff goes all over the seat next to him. She shakes it out, and the inhaler is the last thing to fall out, from somewhere deep in the folds of the lining. "Here you go," she says. "Come on, take two puffs."

Nick nods. He takes two puffs and then tries to breathe slowly. He's had enough of them in the past to know what to do. After a couple of minutes, he takes another puff, but he can feel it start to alleviate. 

Jay touches her hand to his shoulder. "You all right?"

"Yeah," he says. "Sorry." His chest is still a bit tight. "Don't know where that came from."

"It's all right. Don't worry. Suspect everything's a bit up in the air at the moment. Dan's bringing the girls in in a minute. He's parking the car. How's Louis?"

"In pain," Nick says, trying to stuff some of his belongings back into his bag. There's a battered Polaroid of him and Louis, most of their faces cut off, that's fallen out of his notebook. He'd never been all that bothered about anyone finding it; it's barely them. He's always known, though. Their secret. "The nurse is trying to make him comfortable or something."

"I spoke to the nurse earlier. She said he wasn't doing so well on the morphine so they've swapped him to fentonil. It might be that." She stands up so she can hover by the door to Louis's room. Nick hadn't know that there were rooms in hospitals that weren't in ICU. He'd thought it was all wards. He's learning stuff every day. 

"They painkillers?"

"Yeah. Is he still wearing the oxygen mask?"

Nick shakes his head. He takes another puff of his inhaler. "There's a tube," he says. "Hooks round his ears."

"That's good, at least. It'll be painful, though, breathing with those ribs."

"It's hard," Nick says. He's still holding his inhaler even though he thinks he's okay. "Seeing him like that. I thought it would be easier if he wasn't in ICU. Like, he was getting better, but it isn't like that. He's in so much pain. He's so broken."

"I know. Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I probably haven't had that much sleep. Seeing him in pain is rubbish."

She nods, arms folded, tapping her fingers against her elbows as they wait for the nurse to be finished settling Louis. 

Nick ends up staying another hour and a half, but most of that he spends sitting out in the corridor whilst Jay takes the girls in to see Louis. They're small and scared and one of them cries when they come out. For a while, it's just Nick and Louis's mum's partner sitting there, and Dan awkwardly holds a hand out for Nick to shake. 

"We never got properly introduced," Dan says. "Before, you know." When Louis was in Intensive Care. It's possible to say it out loud. Neither of them do, anyway. 

"Sorry," Nick says. "How are you holding up?"

"Tired," Dan says. "Never been a dad before, you know? But it's not just the little ones, it's the rest of them. It's exhausting. Everyone's so worried. I hate seeing Jay like this. I can't help her."

"I know." The older girls have been spending a lot of time with their dad. Nick runs his hands through his hair. "I wish we'd told people, you know? I wish it didn't all have to come out like this. I wish Louis had got to choose."

"It's serious then, you two?" 

It's a stupid question. Nick's lived and breathed the hospital since the accident. "Yeah," he says. He clasps his hands at the back of his neck, and leans down, elbows on his knees. He's so tired. "We never talked about it, but... yeah. It is." At least for him it is. He hopes it's the same for Louis. 

Jay comes out after a bit, the little girls clinging to her sides. "You go in for a bit, love," she says to Nick. "He's been asking for you. I'm going to take the girls down to the canteen for some hot chocolate. You've got my number if you need me?"

Nick nods. They've got each others' numbers now, and Jay's got Nick's name on the list of people who can ring up for updates. Nick suspects she's lied about how long Nick and Louis have been together. It's rather like Nick's been upgraded to life partner. 

Christ. Nick isn't one for commitment normally, but he's in this one for the long haul. He just has to hope Louis is too. 

He goes to sit by Louis's bedside and hooks his little finger into Louis's. "Hi, darling," he says. 

Louis smiles at him sleepily. He's a little more comfortable now, in less pain, but more out of it. "Love you," Louis says, slow and hoarse and a little slurred. "Love you so much."

Nick has to stop crying by Louis's bedside, he really does. "Right back at you," he says. "I love you too." 

Louis manages half a smile. He's so out of it. "Dreamed an octopus was choking me," he says, after a while. "On my face."

"Now?" Nick asks, in surprise. 

"No. Before." 

Nick wonders if he means ICU. "No octopuses," he says. "I promise."

"Not now." Louis's eyes flutter closed. Nick wants him to stay awake, however selfish that is. He opens his eyes after a few moments. "What happened?"

"When, love?"

"Before. Before hospital."

Nick covers Louis's hand with his. "You were in an accident, love. A lorry hit your car. But you're going to be all right now."

"Range rover?"

"Porsche," Nick says. 

"Was it mine?"

Nick blinks away tears. He needs some sleep. "Yes, babe. It was yours."

"Don't remember."

"I know. It's all right."

"I can't remember."

"I know you can't. Don't worry about that now. Just concentrate on getting better." Hospital is about platitudes. Platitudes, and worrying, and the end of everything. He hates it. He never wants to step foot in another one. 

"Will you wash my face?" Louis asks, after another minute where he drifts away and comes back again. "So hot."

"Course." There's a toilet bag in amongst Louis's things; there's a flannel, too, Jay coming in from Boots last week with a little bag of things he might need. They hadn't had cause to use any of them yet. "I won't be a minute, all right? I'm going to get some warm water for you."

Louis nods, and Nick goes down to the nurses' station to ask for a bowl. He gets a thick cardboard one with a solid, flat rim, and Nick doesn't want to ask what that's supposed to be used for. They direct him to a sink, where he runs some warm water into the bowl, squeezing in some of the Imperial Leather shower gel that Jay had brought in to make some bubbles. Then he carries it back down the corridor to Louis's room, and he's rewarded by Louis's soft, sleepy, out-of-it smile. 

He's never washed anyone's face before, and he gets the flannel all wet, squeezing out most of the excess water, before wiping it gently across Louis's forehead, and down to his cheeks and his mouth, avoiding the two stitched-up cuts. He removes the oxygen tube, just for a few moments before hooking it back over his ears, washing his face and his neck and his shoulders. 

"Better?" Nick asks, after a minute. 

Louis nods sleepily. "Don't feel like me," he says. His voice is gruff like a bear's. "Hold my hand?"

Nick should go and empty the water out, but he doesn't. He sits down by the side of Louis's bed, and holds his hand. 

~*~

It's two days later when they take the wound drain out of Louis's side. It's the last remnant of the terrible stomach trauma that almost stole Louis from them, and if it wasn't for the fact that Nick knows they were waiting for Louis to be well enough before they attempted the orthopaedic surgery they weren't able to do when Louis was first admitted, he'd be happy that Louis was finally starting to get better. 

He gets to the hospital the following day for the start of the visiting hours, as he's been doing for the past couple of days, but they're prepping Louis for surgery. Nick has to wait outside whilst they get him ready, and he stands there and shakes, texting Jay to keep her updated, because she's stuck in traffic. 

"The porters will be down to collect him in a few minutes," the nurse tells him. "I think he'll be glad of a bit of company."

Nick nods jerkily. He goes in and pulls up a chair to Louis's bedside. "Hiya, darling."

"Nick."

"How are you feeling? All ready?" He tries to sound jolly. It's difficult. He tucks his hand into Louis's. 

Louis shakes his head. Nick has to wipe away Louis's tears with his thumb. 

"Hey, now, don't cry." If Louis cries, then so will Nick, and it's literally all he's done for days. He's a husk. He's a dried out husk of a human, cried out and exhausted. He leans in so he can press his mouth to Louis's fingertips. They twitch a little, trembling, and his skin is so hot and Nick can't stop himself from crying a little bit. He can't bear to see Louis scared and upset. 

Louis makes a sound at that, desperate and thick in his throat. He's cries harder, tears running down his face. Nick wipes them away with careful fingertips. There are still so many machines and wires and dressings and things that beep and count and measure. His Louis is there in the middle of it, smaller than he should be, and even though he's more alive than he has been for the past few days, it doesn't take away from the fact that Louis is about to have more surgery. 

"Don't cry, love. It's okay."

"Scared," Louis manages, and Nick wants to sob. It catches in his throat. 

"Don't be scared, darling. Everyone's rooting for you. Your mum and me and everyone who loves you. Don't be scared."

Louis's face crumples at that, and Nick leans in to press his mouth to Louis's hot temple. His skin tastes like hospital, a chemical tang that's still so fucking alien Nick doesn't know what to do with himself. 

"You've got all these people looking after you," Nick tells him, trying not to sound like he's tearing himself apart inside. "The best people in the world. You're going to be fine, and then you can come home to us."

"Love you," Louis croaks. His throat still sounds so sore, even though he's been off the ventilator for a while now. 

Nick wipes his eyes on his sleeve, furious with himself. "I love you. I love you so, so much."

The nurse comes in then. There are another couple of things she has to do before the porters arrive, she says, and if any of the nurses on this ward have an opinion on Nick Grimshaw repeatedly crying over Louis Tomlinson, then they don't let it show, even for the tiniest second. "I won't be a minute. Just step outside, then you can come right back on in."

Nick nods. It's longer than a minute he has to wait, but not by much. When he goes back in, Louis holds out his hand for Nick to take.

"Hi," Louis says, in his gruff, croaky voice. His fingers curl in Nick's. "You came back."

"Course I did," Nick says. He rubs at his eyes. "Did you miss me?"

Louis just nods at that, a tiny little movement that gives away too much. 

"How are you feeling?" Nick asks. The nurses bustle in and out, checking things, doing bits and pieces, but Nick stays where he is, the world passing by the two of them. 

"Still scared," Louis says. He's speaking a little slowly and carefully, his voice thick. 

Nick's watched that video of the aftermath of the crash multiple times now. He is literally never, ever going to get that out of his head, the crumpled car and the jack knifed lorry, someone recording it all. The video hit a million views within a day of Louis being admitted to hospital. The lorry driver died before they could get him to hospital. He doesn't think about that. "I know," he says. "What are you scared of, love?"

"Dying," Louis says, softly. 

Nick tries not to break into pieces. "You're not going to die."

"Might," Louis says. 

"You're not," Nick says. It's Nick's biggest fear too. "I love you too much."

Louis smiles a bit at that. "Should get into accidents more often," he manages, slowly, with effort. "Worth it. You saying that."

Nick wants to bundle him up into a tight, tight hug, and take him home and never let him go. "I'll tell you all the time if you want. Anything, so long as you never, ever get in an accident again."

"Deal," Louis says, sleepily, eyes fluttering shut. He's still so pale, and thin, and beaten up. 

"Love you," Nick says, and Louis squeezes his hand. The nurses are coming back with the porters, and Louis's mum isn't going to get here in time to see Louis before he goes down to surgery. That makes him want to sob too. God, he's tired. 

The porters come in. 

"I'll see you soon," Nick tells him. He can't bear the idea of leaving him, not even for a second. Louis looks terrified, and so poorly, and Nick can't leave him. "I promise. I'm going to be waiting for you. With your mum, love. Don't be scared."

When they push him out of the door, Nick blows him a kiss, and Louis's fingers twitch, like he's catching it in his hand. 

"Don't you ever fucking die on me, do you understand?" Nick says, when the room's empty, and Louis's gone. "Don't you ever fucking die on me."

~*~

Jay gets there twenty minutes too late. 

~*~

They sit in his room, which is empty without Louis in it, and wait. 

Two hours tick into three. 

They wait, and Nick replays Louis telling him he didn't want to die over and over in his head. 

It breaks his heart, is the thing. 

~*~

Louis is very woozy when they bring him back to the ward three and a half hours later. He's had pins put in both his lower legs. Nasty fractures, but luckily only broken in one place, each of them, so apparently they were easy to pin. 

Considering every part of the aftermath of Louis's accident has been traumatic, Nick can't bring himself to believe that even a part of it is easy. He goes to the canteen to get him and Jay something to eat. 

Louis is asleep when Nick takes over from Jay at his bedside. She goes outside to call people, let them know how Louis is doing. Nick covers Louis's hand with his own, and tries to concentrate on all the numbers on the machines. Louis is _alive_ , and he's here. 

"I'm hot," Louis says, when he wakes up. Nick strokes his fingers over Louis's. 

"Hiya, love."

"Nick." 

"I'll go and get a bowl of water, if you'd like, wash your face."

Louis nods, and Nick repeats the process from a couple of days ago, warm water and shower gel in a bowl, gently washing his face. 

"That better?" he asks afterwards, and Louis's face crumples.

"I don't feel well." His voice sounds a little short, and breathless.

"I know, love. I'm sorry. Does it hurt?"

He nods. He's still on the button analgesia, and Nick suggests pressing it, but Louis shakes his head. "It's not helping." 

"I'll go and get the nurse."

The nurse is able to give him a bit more pain medication, and she shoos Nick out of the room whilst she tries to make Louis more comfortable. Jay joins him after a while. 

"What's happening?"

"He's uncomfortable."

The nurse comes out after a while and lets them go back in. Jay keeps looking at his oxygen sats on the machine by Louis's head. 

"What's wrong?" Louis asks. His voice sounds a little wheezy. 

"Nothing, I'm sure," Jay says. She kisses his temple. "You're very hot."

Nick looks at the oxygen sats too, but they're just numbers to him. He wonders what Jay sees that he doesn't. 

When Jay says she's going to the loo but sets off down the corridor towards the nurses' station, Nick knows she thinks something's wrong. His hand trembles. He clenches it into a fist under the bed, where Louis can't see. 

"Nick," Louis says. "Where am I?"

Oh god. "Hospital, baby. You're in hospital."

Louis coughs. "It hurts." 

"I know. Your mum's gone to see the nurse." He stands up, trying to smooth Louis's hair away from his hot forehead. Louis is really hot. 

"Nick," Louis says, and his breath catches, "I don't remember what happened."

"It's all right, Lou," Nick tells him, even though he's not sure it is. "It doesn't matter. You're going to be fine." He kisses his temple. 

He's so hot. His skin's dry. 

The nurse comes in to see him, but she says that he's just settling down after surgery. It looks like Jay doesn't believe her.

~*~

An hour and a half later, and Louis keeps coughing, and his breath has turned into wheezes, like Nick before his asthma attack when they brought Louis into HDU. 

Nick can't stop shaking. 

This time the nurse gets a doctor. She doesn't make Jay and Nick stand outside, and they watch her examine Louis, who keeps coughing, and then she turns to the nurse, and the only thing Nick hears her say is _sepsis six_. 

The blood drains from Jay's face. 

"What does that mean?" Nick asks. "What's wrong?"

"He's sick," Jay says. 

"I know that."

"I think he's got pneumonia."

Nick should be used to the bottom dropping out of his world by now, but it turns out he isn't. 

The next hour is terrible. Nurses keep going in and out of Louis's hospital room, and the oxygen mask is back, and they set up more drips going into the back of Louis's good hand, except this time they're IV antibiotics. Nick has to watch them take blood into two massive bottles, and he gets so faint watching that he has to sit down, and he doesn't know if they fill them to the top or not. There's a lot of talk of Louis's urine output, and Nick hasn't really had much chance to think about the fact that Louis has been catheterised for so long, but now it's all he can think about. That is, until two ladies in blue wheel in a huge, great fucking portable x-ray machine into Louis's room, and Nick and Louis's mum get thrown out into the corridor. 

"What's that?"

"They'll need to do a chest x-ray," Jay says. "See if it's HAP or not."

"I have no idea what that is."

"Hospital-acquired pneumonia."

"God." Nick doesn't know what reserves he has left to fight any of this for Louis. There's nothing left. He can't imagine what it's like for Louis, already so weak. He can hear him coughing through the door. He sinks back down into the chair outside Louis's room and puts his head in his hands. "Is he going to be all right?"

"I don't know. Hopefully. I think they caught it in time. I don't know." Jay doesn't sit down. She stands by the closed door to Louis's room instead and digs her fingers into her arms. 

She's still there when the junior doctor comes out ten minutes later. 

"What's the prognosis?" she asks. 

"We need to take him for another abdomen and pelvis CT scan," the doctor says, "in case there's a fluid leak into the abdomen, and if it is, we'll have to see if it's infected."

Nick watches Jay's face to learn how he should react. It's not good. Nothing that includes _leak_ and _infection_ and _Louis_ could possibly be good. 

He puts his face in his hands and tries to breathe in and out. 

~*~

The newspapers in the morning say _**LOUIS PNEUMONIA HORROR** _ and _**LOUIS CRITICAL AGAIN**_ and _**GAY 1D STAR HAS PNEUMONIA**_. That one has a tagline that says, _**Gay Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw has not left his boyfriend's side in days**. _

The pictures of him are getting worse. It's not surprising; he's surviving on adrenaline, exhaustion, and packets of mini cheddars from the vending machine. 

By lunchtime, Tumblr has a picture of Louis in his Intensive Care room from last week, broken and bruised and still on the ventilator, Nick asleep with his cheek on Louis's bed, hand covering Louis's. 

No one has any idea who took it, or how, but Nick goes berserk. He throws the plate he's eating his lunch off across the kitchen, followed by his mug, and he's crying even as Harry tries to stop him throwing his bowl as well, and the vase on the table with the dead flowers in his mum had left. 

Nick wants to kick and punch and scream and shout. It's all caught up in his chest, the unfairness, the desperation, the exhaustion, and the horrible, selfish need he has for Louis to be all right because he can't be without him. He ends up screaming into Harry's shoulder, fists clenched into his shirt, sobbing his heart out as Harry holds him up. They end up on the floor in the end, Harry's arms around him, both of them crying. 

"It's not fair," Nick says, over and over again. "It's not fair, it's not _fair_."

"I know," Harry says. "I know."

~*~

Louis keeps on getting worse. When Harry and Nick get to the hospital and make it through the legions of fans outside, Louis is hot and sweaty and coughing and out of it. He clings to Nick's hand and tells him he's scared of the octopus coming again, and that the service on this cruise is shit, and that he can't breathe when the octopus is on his face.

Staying calm and not breaking down is one of the hardest things Nick's ever had to do. 

"Don't leave me," Louis begs, his voice hoarse. He's back in the oxygen mask, eyes wet, and the nurses keep coming in to check on him 

"I'll be here as long as they let me," Nick promises. 

"Don't let the octopus come back."

"I swear." He keeps a tight hold of Louis's hand. Harry has gone for some water so that Nick can wash Louis's face again, because Louis won't let Nick leave. He's so poorly again, out of it but completely terrified, and Nick isn't going anywhere until they forcibly remove him from Louis's side. 

"The octopus," Louis says again. "Couldn't scream."

There's a tentative possibility sneaking its way into Nick's head, that maybe Louis isn't tripping quite as many balls as he'd assumed. "You were on a ventilator, love. Last week. Do you think that might be what you're thinking of?"

Louis shakes his head. He's so hot. Tears slide down his cheeks, and Nick hates this. He's not built for this. He has no idea what he's doing. 

"Don't cry. Please don't cry. You're safe."

"Don't want to die," Louis says, and if Nick never, ever has to hear him say that again then it will be too soon. 

"You won't," Nick says. "I won't let you."

"It hurts," Louis says. "Want to go home. No octopuses at home."

"No octopuses. I know it hurts, babe. I know. The doctors are making you better, I promise."

When Harry comes back, balancing a bowl of warm water, Nick finally relinquishes his hold on Louis's hand, swapping places with Harry so that he can wipe Louis's face, and catch his tears on the flannel. He lifts the oxygen mask up for a moment so he can wipe Louis's mouth. He settles it back down again afterwards. 

Louis blinks up at him. "I want Nick," he says, staring right at him. "Where's Nick?"

Nick's hand on the bowl shakes. "I'm right here," he says. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You're not Nick," Louis says. "Where's Nick?"

It's all Nick can do not to run for the door. His vibrant, beautiful, full-of-life boyfriend. "Harry's here, love. You want to see Harry, don't you?"

Louis turns his attention to Harry. He still sounds like he's wheezing. "I want Nick."

It's too hard. It wasn't ever supposed to be this hard. He puts the bowl down on the bedside table and hovers uncertainly by the bed, clenching his hands into fists. "I'm right here," he says again. "And I'm staying." They'll have to remove him from Louis's hospital room tonight by force. 

Louis looks at him with unfocused eyes. "Love you," he says. "Don't let the octopus come back."

"I won't. I promise."

This is the hardest thing he's ever done in his life. 

~*~

He calls in sick for the radio show in the morning. Louis had woken up every half hour overnight, and Nick had woken with him, holding his hand and washing his face and talking him down from nightmares. He's still out of it, still terrified of an octopus that isn't there, and Nick isn't leaving him to go to work. 

He's not sure if he'll have a job left to go back to at this rate, but right now he can't bring himself to care. 

Nick falls asleep in the chair by Louis's bed, his hand in Louis's, at six thirty in the morning. 

~*~

>   
>  Nick never expected to see Louis watching him, but every time he looked up, it was to see Louis immediately look the other way. Which was… worthy of exploration. This was the second party in a row where Louis had spent a good proportion of the time sneaking glances at Nick. He tried to catch Harry's eye, see if he knew what was up, but Harry was too busy playing trains with Lux in the dining room to notice what the adults were up to everywhere else in the flat. Nick only had one explanation for why someone would keep sneaking glances at him, but he was fairly sure Louis wasn't trying to get him into bed.
> 
> When he looked back, Louis was watching him again, but this time Louis didn't look away. After a minute, he got up and wandered in the direction of the kitchen. 
> 
> Thing was: Nick never could avoid poking a bruise. 
> 
> "What are you making?" Nick asked, leaning against the doorjamb a minute later. The rest of the flat was busy with people and noise, but for once, the kitchen was empty. 
> 
> Louis looked up from his glass. "Whisky sour," he said. "Do you want one?"
> 
> "Are you going to poison it?"
> 
> Louis cocked his head to one side. "I might do. Ask yourself if it's worth the risk, though. I make a fucking amazing whisky sour."
> 
> "So do I," Nick said. 
> 
> "You can make the next one, then."
> 
> "Sure I'm not going to poison you in return?"
> 
> Louis looked at him over the rim of his glass. "No," he said. "But it might be fun finding out."
> 
> Nick held his gaze. Something inside of his chest fluttered. He didn't acknowledge it. "All right," he said finally. "I'm game if you are."
> 
> "Fine," Louis said. "You can make the first ones."
> 
> Two minutes later, they were fighting. 
> 
> "You don't do it like that," Louis said, hip-checking Nick out of the way and tipping the contents of his drink into the punch bowl. 
> 
> "Oi," Nick said. 
> 
> "Shut up. Pass us the whisky. No, not that one, god. The Jack Daniels."
> 
> "Fine. The Grand Master's at work, then."
> 
> "I'm making you a drink, stop complaining."
> 
> "I had a perfectly good drink before, but you tipped it away." 
> 
> "That punch was shit anyway. Your crap drink couldn't have made it much worse."
> 
> Nick rolled his eyes, but he didn't steal his glass back from Louis, who was rubbing lime around the rim and tipping the contents of the cocktail shaker into the glass. He didn't even point out he didn't like lime. "In some cultures this counts as flirting, by the way. Making me a drink."
> 
> Louis nudged Nick's glass down the counter at him. There was a long pause. When he looked up, his eyes were bright. "What makes you think I'm not?"
> 
> Nick didn't point out that up until two seconds ago, he hadn't exactly been sure that Louis even leaned that way. He took his drink. Whatever; bickering had never felt so hot. He felt pretty brave tonight—maybe it was the whisky. Might as well take advantage, anyway. "What makes you think I've not been trying to find the best way to ask you to come back to mine?"
> 
> "Nick," Louis said, stealing back Nick's drink and knocking back half of it. "You should have said. I'd have made this drink to take away."
> 
> Nick didn't mean to laugh, but he couldn't help it. It burst out of him. 
> 
> Louis's eyes brightened. He bumped his hip into Nick's again, but this time he didn't pull away. "Get your coat, mate, you've pulled."
> 
> Nick snorted. "That's the first time anyone's ever said that in real life."
> 
> "You're living the dream," Louis said. "Do you want to leave first, or should I?"
> 
> Nick stole a scrap of paper from a magnetic shopping list on the front of the fridge. There was a biro with _Florida_ on the side on top of the bread bin. He wrote his address down, and after a moment's hesitation, he wrote his number underneath. "I'd better go first," he said, folding the paper in two and tucking it into the front pocket of Louis's jeans. "You can follow."
> 
> "Yeah," Louis said, and he glanced past Nick into the hall. They'd had two minutes of quiet in the kitchen, but the party was spreading out of the living room and the dining room and towards the kitchen. He reached over and hooked his finger one of Nick's belt loops. "For the record, I quite like coming from behind."
> 
> Nick didn't mean to shiver. "Promises, promises." 
> 
> Louis smacked him on the arse. "Go on, go home and pick your pants off the floor. You've got company coming."
> 
> "Bossy," Nick said. "I'll see you."
> 
> "Yeah," Louis said, smiling. "You will."

~*~

It's two days of Louis getting worse. It's two days of Louis being distressed and sick and coughing and confused; it's two more days Nick never wants to relive in his whole, entire life. 

It's two days where the BBC give Nick indefinite leave from the Breakfast Show to be with Louis, and Nick gives into it and cries down the phone after Ben Cooper himself calls to tell him. 

It's a relief, and it's come too late, but Nick can't cope with having to go into work. He has never been so tired in his life, and he feels sick with it from the moment he crawls out of bed in the morning until the moment he crawls back in at night, stinking of the hospital and sickness and Louis clinging on with everything he's got, confused and poorly and upset. 

The Mail runs with _**'Unfortunately Grimmy will not be presenting this week': Nick Grimshaw to miss more Breakfast Shows as BBC give him leave to care for seriously ill boyfriend, gay 1D star Louis Tomlinson**. _ Because that's still going on too; Louis is still outed and Nick has tried and tried to protect Louis by not confirming the truth, but it's too much. He's too tired. 

He takes the offer of compassionate leave, and with it, confirms what everyone's been reporting as truth: that Louis isn't straight, and that he's with Nick, and with it, he takes the last possible chance for Louis to tell people himself. He would have done anything to allow Louis that one last attempt at control. As it is, he takes that from him, too. 

He throws up his sandwich before he leaves for the hospital, his nausea a constant companion because he's so fucking tired and scared. He ends up wiping his mouth and sitting on the bathroom floor with Pig in his lap, trying to figure out how the hell he's supposed to get up and do another day of this. Another day of running the gauntlet of the paparazzi, of the fans, of the people who tweet him telling him he's going to hell, and accuse him of breaking up Harry and Louis, and tell him they wish he was dead, or wish he would eat glass, or any of the other hundreds of way they make each hour harder than it should be. He can't go to the shop and buy Pig food. He can't buy himself food because he feels sick all the fucking time and he hates eating it. Everyone watching him wherever he goes, and he's so tired he's on the edge of tears over the stupidest stuff. He can't get the smell of hospital off him and at some point he has to tell Louis that everyone knows about them.

It's too hard. 

There's a text message from his mum on his phone. _Do you want me to come back down?_

She'd sent it yesterday. He texts back _yes please_. 

He cries on his dog, too tired to drive to Hampshire to see Louis. But he can't leave him there alone. He changes his t-shirt and washes his face and cleans his teeth, and then he grits his teeth and braves the rat run to his car. 

~*~

"How is he?" he asks the red-headed nurse before going into his room. Her name's Sarah. She smiles at him. 

"The antibiotics are finally starting to take effect. I think you'll notice a change for the better straightaway."

He lets out a ragged breath, and tries not to let his wobbly legs give out on him. He grips the edge of the counter anyway. His gaze swims a little. 

"Sit down," she says. "You came over all faint then. Sit down, I'll get you a cup of tea."

He nods and drops his head between his knees, sliding his hands into his hair. He's still a bit dizzy, but she brings him a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup from the office behind the nurses' desk, and a two finger Kit Kat. 

"I know it's been hard," she says, "but you've got to make sure you're looking after yourself too."

"Try doing that when there's paparazzi following you everywhere." He doesn't mean to sound bitter. He's just so tired. "Is he really getting better?"

"Hopefully," she says. "Why don't you go in and say hello and see for yourself? He's been asking for you. Well, asking what time it was. He knows you're always here at one."

It's five past now. He takes another gulp of his tea. "What do I owe you for the tea?"

"Don't worry," she says. "We're not really supposed to have a kettle."

"Okay," he says. He still feels a little light headed. He eats a finger of the Kit Kat and smiles at her. "Thanks."

Louis is awake when he goes in, one eye on the clock. He's still wearing the oxygen mask, but he's got his glasses on. Nick hadn't thought about Louis not being able to see before. He's an idiot. 

"Hey, love," Nick says. He puts his cup of tea down on the bedside cabinet and pulls up a chair, sitting down carefully. He still feels a bit dizzy. Louis shifts a little so that he's turned his face to look at Nick. 

"Kiss me," Louis says, and he sounds so fierce that Nick can't help but startle at it. 

"Hello to me too," Nick says. The relief that's budding inside of him is painful and true. He leans over to stroke Louis's hair away from his forehead, before leaning over to kiss his temple. He stays there a moment longer, still stroking Louis's hair away from his face. "You look a bit better. How are you feeling?"

"No octopuses," Louis says slowly. He's smiling a little beneath his oxygen mask. "Sorry. Still feel shit."

"You have got pneumonia," Nick says. "Fuck, it's good to see you more of yourself."

"Miss me, did you?" His voice is slow and a little laboured. There's still a hollow sound to his breathing. 

"Nah," Nick says. He tucks his fingers around Louis's before ducking down to kiss his hot fingertips. "Christ, Lou."

"Love you," Louis says softly. His eyes are a little wet.

"Don't cry, love. Nothing to cry about." Nick reaches for a tissue, and makes a big deal of wiping Louis' face, underneath his glasses. 

"Don't feel well."

"I know. You're poorly."

"I want to go home."

"I know. Maybe wait until you're attached to less machines, all right? You know Pig can't resist dangling shit. She'll be chewing on your wires like it's Christmas."

"Pig."

"Yeah," Nick says, heart pounding. "You remember Pig."

"Yeah. Not at my house."

Nick stills. "She doesn't have to be." Nick hadn't given much thought to _home_. 

"Want her there."

Nick forces himself to smile. He wants to throw up in sheer relief that Louis seems better. He's so, so exhausted. He wants to steal Louis away and take him home for Pig to annoy. "She can be wherever you want her to be. God, it's good to see you better."

"Sorry. For worrying you."

"So long as you're getting better." Nick strokes his hair away from his forehead again. His hands are shaking. "We should get you a TV set up in here. So you don't get bored. Wasn't much point before, but you might want one now."

Louis nods. He's sitting up a little bit more than he had been before, his bed angled up a little so he's not lying flat. What with the broken bones, the broken ribs, the internal injuries, and the pneumonia, Louis is small and fragile and broken. "Sleeping a lot."

"I know."

Louis smiles at him then, sleepy and poorly but more Nick's Louis than he has been in days and days and days and days. It's a beautiful, lovely, almost impossible relief. Nick holds on to his hand, and tries not to give in to the desperation inside of him. 

~*~

His mum's arrived, but gone to the supermarket when he gets home from the hospital, and she comes in to find him curled up on the sofa, wrapped in a coat, sobbing, with Pig licking his face and whimpering. 

"Oh, love," she says, putting her bags down on the floor. "Oh, Nicholas."

"I don't feel well," he says, still crying. "I'm so tired."

"Why didn't you call me?" she asks. Nick had been too tired even to turn the lights on when he got in. He's lying in the dark. "I could have come back down before today."

"Dunno," he says. "Mum, I can't do this anymore."

"Course you can," she says. She switches the lights on and then comes over to give him a hug, stroking his hair. "First of all, who do you need to call to let them know you won't be in in the morning? Because you're not going in. And when was the last time you ate?"

"No one. They've given me compassionate leave. And I don't know. I was sick this morning."

She strokes his hair some more. "You poor love," she says. "Right. I'll run you a bath, and then when you're in the bath, I'll change the sheets on the bed and make you some toast and some hot milk."

"I can't have dairy," Nick says, through his tears. He's so tired he's not even sure he can make it into the bedroom. "You never remember. You're just trying to kill me."

"It won't kill you, Nicholas," she says, "stop complaining. I'll make you something else. You and that brother of yours, for heaven's sake."

"I can't have dairy, Andrew's the one who's allergic to pineapple. It's not that difficult to remember."

"You make pineapple jelly once, and no one lets you forget it." She kisses his temple. "Come on. You'll feel a lot better for a bath and some toast. Me and Pig will change the sheets."

Pig is having none of it. Pig comes and sits in the bathroom with Nick, carefully guarding Nick whilst he sits in his bath and feels terrible. It's quite comforting in a way, Pig with her nose on the edge of the bath, Nick's mum outside changing the sheets. 

"Toast's in," she calls after a few minutes. "Get washed and get out. Don't drown in there, you've got a boyfriend to go and see tomorrow."

Nick drops his chin down to his chest. Louis. A six month relationship that no one knew about, and now the two of them are out and together and Louis doesn't even know about it. Guilt sits heavy in his chest. Louis seems to want Nick around as much as Nick wants to be there, but Louis is ill, and has spent the best part of the last few days convinced there was an octopus out there waiting to get him whenever he closed his eyes, so this relationship might not actually be what Louis wants. 

And the thing is, now that Louis is starting to get better, at some point he's going to have to find out about how they've been outed, and Nick has no capacity for dealing with any fall out. None at all. He can't even start to think about what it might be like if he's had the wrong idea about how serious they are. 

He finishes washing his hair using the milk jug his mum had brought in for him when she'd run the bath, and then he lets the water drain out and stays sitting right where he is. 

"Have you gone down the plughole, Nicholas?" his mum asks, knocking on the bathroom door. 

"No." He can't even work up to a pithy comeback. There's nothing left. 

"Then get out and come and have some toast. I've made some for the dog, too."

"You can't feed my dog toast."

"Trust me, that dog of yours loves it."

"Mum." He gets out of the bath and dries himself on a fresh towel before putting on a set of fresh pyjamas that his mum had laid out on top of the closed loo for him. He can't ever remember anything close to this happening before. Not this level of care, anyway. He can't remember having needed it.

The bed's all made for him when he comes out of the bathroom, and Pig makes a jump for it, but his mum stops her. "No, Pig. Not on the bed." 

She whines, and tries again, but his mum's having none of it. There's a plate of toast and a carton of coconut water on the bedside table, and Nick climbs into bed gratefully. 

"Feeling any better?" she asks, as he studiously takes a first bite of his toast. He still feels shit, and he's not sure food's going to help. His hands shake. He can't quite remember the last time he ate. That Kit Kat at the hospital, perhaps. 

"Yes, Mum."

"Okay. Eat up. What time do you need to be up in the morning to get to the hospital?"

He shrugs. "Dunno. Ten, maybe."

She gets her phone out of her pocket and makes a very longwinded attempt at setting her alarm. "Right, then. We're all set. I'll make sure you're up in time."

"I don't feel well."

"Eat your toast," she says. "Drink your nonsense drink."

"It's coconut water."

"Do you know how much that stuff costs?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Well, you can throw your money away if you want."

He tries to smile, and dutifully eats the rest of his toast. 

"Good," his mum says. "Now drink up, and then you can go to sleep."

He waits until she's turned the lights off and pulled the door to before he reaches out and strokes his hand over the empty pillows next to him. There's been a space in his bed for too long. 

He wants Louis to come home. 

~*~

>   
>  "What's with all the bags?" Nick asked, coming into the hall with his cup of coffee and a piece of toast. "Thought you only went out for milk."
> 
> "Well, if you weren't a weirdo who didn't like it, then I wouldn't have had to, would I?" There were six Morrison's shopping bags dumped on Nick's new hardwood floor. Louis had gone an odd shade of pink, too, which Nick rather appreciated. 
> 
> "It's not that I don't like it," Nick pointed out as he toed at one of the bags to see if he could peek inside without Louis noticing, "it's just that it gives me the runs."
> 
> Louis wrinkled his nose up. "Sexy."
> 
> "I know. My lactose intolerance brings all the boys to the yard. Gives me a stomach ache and makes me clear my throat all the time too."
> 
> "Hmm. Does that make you all kind of gruff and husky?" Louis shrugged off his jacket and dumped it on the rack by the door. He had no idea of finesse, which should have pissed Nick off no end, but instead he found it sort of endearing, which put Louis head and shoulders over any of the other boyfriends that Nick had had. 
> 
> Not that he and Louis were officially going out. They were just, you know, shagging on repeat occasions. Everyone did it. It was very twenty-first century. 
> 
> Maybe they _should_ be going out. 
> 
> Christ.
> 
> "Grimshaw. Earth to fucking Grimshaw. Does it make you all gruff and husky?"
> 
> Nick rolled his eyes and dropped his voice, giving him his best husky radio presenter impression. "Like this, you mean? Go on, what's in the bags?"
> 
> "Don't talk like that, you're putting me off."
> 
> "Putting you off what?"
> 
> "I was going to make you dinner," Louis said quickly. "Like, nothing special or anything. It's mostly out of the chillers. I've only made stuff from scratch once, and that was for Harry. It took me fucking hours. I'm more of a pasta and sauce kind of a guy."
> 
> "You're going to make me dinner," Nick said. "Six bags worth of dinner?"
> 
> "You always have crap junk food."
> 
> "So… now I have piles of junk food that you like?" Nick raised an eyebrow. 
> 
> "No, now I have piles of junk food that I like that I'm keeping here. And I'm making you dinner, so stop making that face. And help me carry this stuff through to the kitchen."
> 
> "You'll have to have your own shelf at this rate."
> 
> Louis stayed very still for a long moment. "I bought a lot," he said. "You'd better make it two."
> 
> "Fine. I'll clear you out a cupboard," Nick said, trying for exasperated and mostly sounding fond instead. "I bet you want me to help you in the kitchen, too."
> 
> Louis scooped up three of the bags and swept past Nick towards the kitchen. "No," he said, throwing Nick a glance over his shoulder. "I'm doing this. You can set the table if you'd like."
> 
> "Table, huh?"
> 
> "There are flowers in that bag by your feet. You'd better own a vase."
> 
> Nick's insides were doing somersaults, but he tried not to let it show too much. This beautiful, ridiculous, hopelessly romantic boy he'd fallen for. He'd never—it wasn't supposed to have gone like this. He put the bags carefully on the kitchen floor and fished out a pretty bunch of supermarket flowers, all purples and pinks and greens. "I've got a vase. What're you cooking me, anyway?"
> 
> "It's a surprise," Louis said, in a haughty voice, waving him out. "Set the table, minion."
> 
> Nick dutifully left the kitchen, and went to get place mats out of the sideboard so he could set the table. He got candles out too, the tarnished silver ones from the antique market in Camden, and the mismatching table mats, a birthday present from Pixie. He laid the table with a green tablecloth to match the flowers. 
> 
> Then, when the places were set, he went into the bathroom to arrange the flowers (in a vase that Kate had given him, two Christmases ago), and to hide his stupid, ridiculous, too-wide smile from anywhere Louis might accidentally see him. 
> 
> He hadn't meant to fall for him, but now that he had, he didn't want to stop. 
> 
> It took him ages to trim the bottoms off the stems and arrange them to his liking, but when he was finally satisfied, he carefully carried them back into the living room, Pig yapping at his feet. "If I fall over you," he warned, "seal dog or no seal dog, you won't be happy if you're covered in bits of wet flower."
> 
> Pig happily ignored him and proceeded to get in his way right up until the moment he put the flowers in the middle of the table. There were plates set there now, and two full glasses of red wine, and right in the middle of his Anthropologie plate was a post-it that just said, _be mine, fucker_ across the middle, with four smiley faces and six hearts underneath.
> 
> Nick sat down on his chair with a bump. The post-its were still on the table—Nick never could make Louis tidy up after himself—and the pen Henry had got him for Christmas with his initials on the clip lying next to them. He peeled off a new post-it, and wrote _yes, you giant dickhead xxxxxxxx_ across the middle, and left it in the middle of Louis's plate. 
> 
> Then he went over to the sofa to bury his face in a cushion and mouth-breath his feelings into his soft-furnishings. 
> 
> He stayed there quite a long time—there were a lot of feelings he had to mouth-breath into his cushion—and he didn't move even as he heard Louis finish in the kitchen, and come out into the living room, steps careful enough that Nick assumed he was carrying something. There was a strong smell of garlic. Nick gave him enough time to find the post-it, and then a bit longer after that. Then a bit longer still. 
> 
> Louis came over after a while and rubbed his back. "You okay?"
> 
> Nick shifted position a little so that he could open one eye and look up at him. His heart pounded. "I always breathe into a cushion when I exchange post-it notes with boys I like. Does this mean we're going out?"
> 
> Louis shrugged. "Only if you want to be."
> 
> "Well," Nick said, reaching up for him with a shaking hand and dragging him down and into a kiss, "you did bring me flowers."
> 
> "Only so I could get into your pants," Louis told him, splaying his fingers over Nick's cheek and kissing the corner of his mouth. "Did it work?"
> 
> "Depends how good dinner is, I think."
> 
> "Spaghetti bolognese, garlic bread, dairy free cheese substitute for you, bog-standard cheese for me, salad, and cake for dessert. Milk free."
> 
> Nick kissed him again. "Spoiler," he said. "I would have gone out with you for the dairy free cheese substitute alone."
> 
> Louis laughed against his mouth, and tugged him up and off the sofa. "Spaghetti time," he said, lacing his fingers with Nick's. He dragged him towards the table, shooting him a smirk over his shoulder. "Boyfriend."
> 
> _Christ_ , Nick thought, and laughed out loud. 

~*~

"My mum's come down to stay," Nick tells Louis, once Jay's gone to get them all cups of tea from the vending machine. "She'd like to meet you. She's been worried. I thought I might bring her in, if that was okay with you. Tomorrow. Just for a minute. To say hi."

Louis is sleepy with the pain medication and the antibiotics. "All right," he says. He tucks his fingers into Nick's. There are track marks all over the back of his hand from the drips. He's still connected to at least two. Nick is so, so sick of tubes and wires. "Will she like me?"

"Dunno," Nick says. "If you're on your best behaviour, maybe."

Louis smiles. It's a slow process. "Does she know about us?"

Sometimes the inside of Nick's chest feels like ice. "Yeah," he says. "She knows."

~*~

Nick shows up at one the following afternoon with his mum in tow, and an orchid in one hand. The oxygen mask's gone this time, and the little tube into Louis's nose is back. 

"I kill plants," Louis say as Nick deposits the plant on his bedside table, but he's smiling sleepily. "You look less like the walking dead than yesterday."

"Isn't that my line?" Nick leans in to kiss his forehead. "This is my mum. Eileen. Mum, Louis."

"I've been making sure he's getting enough sleep," Eileen says, coming over and covering Louis's hand with her own. "It's very nice to meet you finally, young lad. And extremely nice to hear you're on the mend."

"Nice to meet you too," he says, words a little thick. He's still so pale. His scar down his stomach is still red raw, but maybe not quite so angry as it had been last week. Nick wants to trace _it is what it is_ with his fingertips. 

"How's the pneumonia?" Nick asks. His mum had made him toast and marmite for breakfast this morning, and soup last night. Pig's food stocks are back up to what they should be, and he'd only had two nightmares last night, and she'd sat up with him after each, watching bits of _The Simpsons_ until he fell asleep again. She'd brought an inflatable airbed down with her, and a sleeping bag, and no amount of Nick complaining about it would make her give it up and give him it instead.

"Ribs hurt more," Louis says. "Stomach hurts more. Arm itches. Pneumonia just makes me feel rotten."

"Well, you have been in the wars," Eileen says. "You have had us all worried."

"Do you need anything?" Nick asks. He feels awkward with his mum here. "How's the TV?"

"Good," Louis says. "Watched _This Morning_ earlier."

"Classic, I know," Nick says. "Did you see _Lorraine_ before that? It was rubbish today."

Louis's brow furrows. "Shouldn't you have been at work?"

"Took some leave," Nick says. He knows he has to talk to Louis about everything that's happened, but he wants Louis to be up to it. He's not sure that that day is today. He's not sure it will ever be that day. He's a gigantic fucking coward. "Showing Mum the sights, aren't I?"

"Hope he's giving you the good tour."

"The best, love," she says. "Now, is there anything we can do for you? Have you got everything you need?"

"Make me feel better?" he suggests. 

"Not so good at that," she says. "Is bugger-lugs here doing all right at looking after you?"

He smiles at that, slow and sleepy, turning his face a little to meet Nick's eyes. "Yeah," he says. "He's everything."

Nick wants to curl up and sob. He can't keep the truth from Louis all that much longer. At some point it's going to be mentioned on the TV or in a newspaper and Louis is going to see it. They have to talk about it in the next couple of days. He just doesn't want Louis not to want him around afterwards. He squeezes Louis's hand instead.

"I won't stay long," Nick's mum's saying. "I just wanted to come in and say hello. You'll have to come up and meet the rest of us when you're out of here. Nick's dad would love to meet you."

Louis glances at Nick. 

Nick can't quite read Louis's expression. "They all know," he says. "They didn't before, but they know now."

Louis waits a moment before nodding. "That'll be nice. It might be a while, though. Bit poorly."

Nick's mum smiles. "You concentrate on getting yourself better first," she says. "Plenty of time for gallivanting up to see us later."

She doesn't stay long. She's going to do a little bit of shopping and then come back and pick Nick up; she kisses Nick on the top of his head, and then leans in to kiss Louis's temple. 

"Your mum's nice," Louis says, once she's gone. 

"She is," Nick agrees. 

"Kiss," Louis says. He sounds fierce again. 

Nick leans in and presses his mouth to Louis's. He trembles with it. Louis tastes like hospital smells, and his lips are dry and chapped. When he sits back down again, Louis is watching him, serious. 

"I love you," Nick says. "I wish that I'd told you that before this all happened."

"Me too," Louis says. "Wish I'd told you that too."

"We messed up," Nick says, "not telling anyone."

Louis nods. "Yeah. Just wanted it to be you and me though."

"I know," Nick says. He doesn't ask if he wishes it was like that now. He's scared of the answer. "Is there anything you need? I could bring you some stuff tomorrow."

"I know it's weird, but like—" His fingers twitch. "Will you shave me?"

"Like, your face?"

Louis wrinkles his nose up. "It itches. The nurse said she'd do it, but I want you to."

"I could go down to the shop and see if they've got any razors. They might. If not, I'll ring my mum and ask her to buy one when she's out. If you really want me to."

"It's not too weird?"

Nick shakes his head. "Whatever you want, love."

~*~

All Nick seems to be doing at the moment is carrying cardboard bowls full of warm water down hospital corridors, but as the shop had disposable razors and shaving gel, he's obviously destined to take up a second career as a barber. 

Or possibly, a first career, if he doesn't figure out a way to manage work and being with Louis at hospital and his constant, overwhelming exhaustion. 

"Hi," Louis says. 

"Hi, yourself," Nick says. "You sure you want me to do this?"

"Itches," Louis says again. 

"Okay." Nick doesn't want his hand to shake. He arranges the towel over Louis' chest and shoulders, like the nurse had suggested when he'd asked her for advice. "Don't want water getting everywhere."

Louis gives him half a smile. God, Nick loves him. He loves him so fucking much. Even when he's out of it on pain medication.

It's entirely difficult to shaving himself. Louis stays still as Nick wets the flannel and washes Louis's face, moving the oxygen cannulas out of the way whilst he wets his face. Nick's going to have to bring him some lip balm in or something; his lips are so chapped. It's been ages, but Nick still can't get used to this; to Louis, his giant ball of energy reduced to someone so small and still. 

"Okay?"

Louis nods. "Yeah."

The shaving foam is the sensitive kind, but even so, Nick is worried about it irritating him. "Tell me if it hurts," he says, squirting some onto his hand and then smoothing it over Louis's jaw. 

"It won't."

"It might."

"Stop fussing," Louis says. "I'm the same as I always was."

 _You're not_ , Nick can't help but think. _You're never going to be the same_. Nick's not sure at all that he's ever going to be the same again either. He concentrates on smoothing more of the foam over Louis's face, until he's all fluffy with it, apart from the stitched up cut beneath his eye. Nick's heart's pounding, and he doesn't even know why. 

He starts with Louis's sideburns, gentle and slow, scared that he'll hurt him. He's already so hurt; Nick can't bear the idea of adding to that. And Louis is so still beneath him. Louis has never, ever been still in the whole time Nick's known him. He's even restless in sleep, rolling over and stealing the duvet and burrowing into Nick's side and hanging off the edge of the bed. He's a real life Tasmanian Devil. It just seems wrong that Louis is frozen in time whilst the world moves on around him. 

He rinses the razor over and over, until Louis is mostly clean shaven. Nick washes his face with the flannel, discovering the bits he's missed and spotting shaving foam onto them until he's satisfied with his job. 

Louis is so pale and washed out. His vibrancy is gone, his spirit muted, and he blinks slowly as Nick dries his face before starting to smooth on moisturiser. It's fragrance free and soft, and Louis tilts his chin up a little so that Nick can apply it to his neck too. 

When Nick comes back after getting rid of the shaving water, drying the razor and adding it to Louis's toilet bag, Louis reaches for him, touching his fingers to Nick's wrist. 

"Thanks," Louis says softly. "For everything. I couldn't have done any of this without you."

Nick tries to smile. He gives up and touches his forehead to Louis's fingertips. "I wish I'd told you I loved you before this happened," he says. "I knew. I knew I did. I just didn't want to fuck anything up."

Louis's fingers tremble against Nick's temple. "I knew too," he says. 

Nick sits back in his seat then. He tucks his fingers round Louis's. His other arm is still in a half-cast. There's no bit of Louis that isn't broken. It breaks his heart. "Is there anything else you need?"

Louis waits a moment before replying. "My phone?"

Nick tried not to shake. "It got broken," he says. "I think, anyway. In the accident."

"Oh. What about my iPad?"

"It's probably at your house. Your mum could bring it in tomorrow." It means tomorrow is the latest Nick can wait before telling Louis they've been outed. God. Will it just get a little bit easier? For one second? Nick's always picked the easier road. It's who he is. Everything about this is hard. 

"Please," Louis says. "I'm going mad in here. I'm sick of it."

"That's a good sign, I think. Means you're getting better."

"Not fast enough." He pauses, pressing the PCA button. "I feel sick all the time. I hate this stupid pain medication. I hate how much it hurts. I just want to breathe without it hurting. I want to talk without it hurting. I want it to stop hurting. I can't do anything. I want to go home."

"Oh, Lou. What did the doctors say?"

Louis shrugs a shoulder. "They're going to move me onto a ward. Out of HDU. They think the antibiotics are working for the pneumonia. They're still talking about my spleen, though."

Nick takes a breath. "They're talking about your spleen?"

"All week." Louis frowns. "They thought it was infected or something. Wasn't healing properly. Didn't they tell you?"

 _No_. Nick schools his face into something as calm as he can possibly make it. It's hard. "Probably. You know what my memory's like."

"Shit," Louis says. He looks sleepier than he did a minute ago; Nick hopes the medication is helping with the pain. Louis looks washed out with it, small and ill. His voice is a little slower too. 

"Exactly." Nick can't help but be scared. Hospital's full of secret threats: infections and illnesses and germs, and Louis isn't strong enough to fight them all. He'd hoped hospital-acquired pneumonia would be the end of it.

Fuck, he doesn't even know what a spleen _is_. He thinks that Louis ruptured his. That's it. That's the extent of his information. What else are they keeping from him?

"Did they tell you when they might move you?"

"Dunno. Still taking antibiotics for the next couple of days. Steve came into see me last night." Steve's from Louis's management team. Or his label. Something. Nick's head feels like cotton wool. He'd never involved himself in that side of Louis's life before, anyway. He's met all kinds of people over the last few weeks, but he can't link them all together. He's only just started to recognise the security detail that man the entrance to HDU during visiting hours, and he sees them every day. 

"What did he want?"

"Talking about when they're going to move me. To a hospital nearer home. A private one."

"Bet your mum's happy about that. Being nearer." He doesn't dare say he would be, but the commute's killing him. He tries not to think about why no one told him. 

"Not about it not being NHS. If you chopped her open, it'd say NHS on the inside, like a stick of rock." His voice has got a little thicker, like it always does when the pain medication hits. 

"NHS, and your names."

Louis smiles slowly at that. He looks exhausted. "I didn't know where I was. Thought I might be in Doncaster or something."

Nick shakes his head. "Hampshire."

"I don't even know where that is."

"I didn't until you ended up here."

Louis blinks sleepily. "Love you."

"You should nap."

He shakes his head. "You'll go."

"I won't. Promise. I'll be here when you wake up."

Louis is already drifting off. 

Nick waits until he's sure that Louis is asleep before he drops his face into his hands. 

~*~

"Louis says that they're thinking of moving him," Nick says, when he comes back from the canteen with three cups of tea—one for him, one for Jay, and one for Sarah, the nurse. They're standing just outside Louis's room so as to not wake him up. "And what's this about them being worried about his spleen?"

Jay looks marginally less exhausted. Nick cannot imagine having to leave the hospital and go and be a mum; he's one hundred per cent failed at every single part of his life outside of first ICU and now HDU. 

"Yeah. If they put him on a ward here, it'd be with five other people. They're not happy—and I'm not either—with his security if they do that. He'll have his own room at this new hospital."

Nick doesn't bother asking why no one told him. He's not sure he'll like the answer.

"I always said none of my family would ever go private. But, like—" She stops. They've all had to deal with the constant interest from the press and all of Louis's fans. Nick's still dealing with bucketloads of homophobic shit too, but he doesn't bring it up. He genuinely has no idea how Jay's managed to keep her family together over the past weeks. "I want him to be safe and get better. That's what I want."

"Where's he going?"

Jay takes a sip of her tea. "There's a place at the end of the Jubilee line, apparently. Where do they make _Eastenders?_ Near there, I think. Or maybe somewhere else beginning with E."

"Elstree," Nick says. "Dunno where the end of the Jubilee line is."

"They told me and I've forgotten."

Nick nods. They're all so fucking exhausted. Zayn and Liam are due in a bit, then Niall later on. Some of Louis's sisters too. Trying to fit everyone in is a logistical nightmare all by itself. Nick's only staying because he promised Louis he'd be there when he woke up; the two guests per bed is strictly managed. "When's it happening?" He waits a beat. "Don't want to turn up here and find him gone."

There's a pause. "Nick—"

"I don't care, all right? I just—as long as I know when it happens."

Jay presses her fingertips to her forehead. "I'm getting it from all sides. Them, and the girls, and Dan, and the babies, and coming here. I don't know why they're contacting me and not you. I don't know, all right?"

"I'm not having a go," Nick says, even though he sort of is. He doesn't get the best of any world at the moment. They're out, but Louis doesn't know, and no one is treating him like he's officially Louis's partner. He doesn't even know if they should be doing, because _Louis doesn't know_ , and Nick is about two seconds from melting down. 

"He needs to finish the antibiotics, and they need to take him off the PCA and take the catheter out. So, the next couple of days, probably. Maybe tomorrow. But it all depends on the results of the tests he had this morning. Looking at his spleen."

Nick nods. He watches Louis sleeping through the open door. He hates the word _spleen_. He hates that he's too tired to fight. He'll go wherever Louis is, and he'll figure the rest of it out later. He could sleep standing up. Or cry. One of the two.

Jay touches his arm. "I'll tell you as soon as I know anything. Promise."

"All right." He swallows. "He's asked for his iPad. Can you bring it in tomorrow? If you can find it, you know what he's like with his stuff."

"Nick—"

"I'll tell him when I come in tomorrow."

"Be careful with him. He didn't ask for this."

Neither had Nick. He hadn't asked for any of it. All he'd done was fall in love with Louis. It hadn't felt like a crime, but this still feels like a punishment. 

~*~

He stays until Zayn and Liam arrive, hugging them both hello, his mum texting him from the canteen downstairs. Louis is sleepily awake, and Nick kisses him good bye, promising to be there at one o'clock sharp tomorrow. 

Nick hates leaving him. He really, really fucking hates leaving him. 

~*~

They're already back in London when Nick pulls over into a Shell forecourt. 

"What's wrong?" his mum asks, as Nick kills the engine. They're parked up by the car wash. 

"I can't," Nick says, and he doesn't know what he's saying. "I can't leave it until tomorrow. I need to tell him today."

"But we're almost home. You don't want to turn round and drive all that way back."

"You don't have to," Nick says, rooting around in his pocket for his phone. "I'll order you a car, and wait here until it arrives. I just can't leave it another night. He's got that TV, and everyone's visiting. He could find out at any time, and I can't forgive myself if it's not me he finds out from." He's honestly five minutes from cracking up. He can't go home and look after Pig and eat dinner when Louis doesn't know. He can't do anything. He just needs to fucking tell him.

"You will not," his mum says. "I'm coming with you. You're not going there alone."

"Mum—"

"I'm not taking no for an answer. Let's go and get some crisps and a sandwich or something, and a bottle of Coke. We could both do with a bit of energy."

Nick drops his face to the steering wheel. "God." He reaches for his wallet and gets his card out. "It's contactless," he says. "Get whatever you want, but keep it under twenty if you don't want to come back out here for my pin."

"What are you going to do?"

Nick shrugs. "Call Harry." 

She pats his hand. "All right. Any preference for food?"

"Get Louis a packet of Skips, will you? And some Maltesers. People keep bringing him grapes. He'd rather eat a kebab."

"I'm not bringing him one of those."

He tries to smile at her. It's hard. She pats him on the hand again and gets out of the car. There are texts on his phone from all of his friends; all of them asking how they can help. Nick can't talk to them. If he talks to them for a single minute he'll break down, and he can't do that. He has to be strong, for Louis. For everything. 

He finds Harry's name and presses call. 

It goes to voicemail. 

Nick closes his eyes, and waits for the beat. "Hiya, love," he starts, then stops. "God, Harry. Louis's fine, by the way. Well, you know. He might not be, but no one's told me anything. So I'm assuming he's as fine as he can be. I'm just—I'm cracking the fuck up, Haz. I can't do this anymore. Have you seen _The Mirror_ today? There's a two page spread asking how we kept it secret. I saw it in the canteen as I was leaving. I don't know why everyone cares so much. I just—I fell in love with him, all right, and I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. It wasn't... it wasn't malicious. We weren't hating ourselves and what we were doing or anything. I mean. I wasn't. I don't think Louis was either. And I've got to tell him, Haz. I've got to tell him everyone knows. 

"I'm going back to the hospital now. I was going to do it tomorrow, but I'm holding myself together by, like, a thread. I got most of the way home and I'm turning back around to go back. Harry, I just—I could just, like, cry by the side of the road. I don't know how I'm supposed to be keeping myself together. Everyone else is managing it.

"I don't even know why I'm ringing. I'm sorry, all right? I'm sorry." He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. "I'll talk to you later, okay. I'm all right. Bye, then."

He sits in the car with his phone in his lap and waits for his mum to come back. 

~*~

"Nick?"

Nick tries to smile. He waves at Louis, forcing himself to look relaxed. Niall and Jay are sitting by his bed. 

"Can I steal a few minutes with Louis?"

Louis's brow furrows. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, babe. It's all right."

"You left, though," Louis persists. He still looks tired. Pale as well. There's only ten minutes left of visiting hours; Nick had got stuck in traffic. An accident; tailbacks. Nick hadn't had a panic attack. It had been close. 

The nurse sticks his head round the door. "Two visitors to a bed, folks. One of you's going to have to go."

"I'll go," Niall says. He leans over and kisses Louis on the forehead. "I'll see you the day after tomorrow, all right?"

Nick doesn't watch their goodbyes. As Niall leaves, he gives Nick a hug too, murmuring _chin up_ in Nick's ear. 

"Jay," Nick says. "Sorry. But, like, just for a few minutes."

She doesn't look happy, but she kisses Louis and gathers up her things. "I'll be in the corridor."

Nick closes the door carefully and comes to sit down by Louis's bed. 

"What's wrong?" Louis asks. He sounds scared. 

"I just—I was going to tell you tomorrow, but I couldn't go through another night. So I turned round and drove back so I could see you."

"Nick, please. You're scaring me."

"It's like—god, I don't know how to put this into words. But you've got your TV, and you want your iPad. And I don't want you to find out like that."

"Find out what?"

"We got outed," Nick says softly, and he wishes he wasn't doing this like this, but he's only got a few minutes. "The papers found out I was always here with you when you were in ICU, and we got outed."

"Nick."

"Everyone knows, love."

There's a pause. Louis's hand is trembling. "Everyone?"

"Yeah. I'm so sorry."

"They all know?"

"It was front page news." He doesn't mention that it still is. "I'm sorry. I know this isn't what you wanted."

Louis shakes his head. "I fucking hate them," he says. "I hate them all." He's crying. 

Nick wants to cry himself. He reaches for a tissue and tries to wipe Louis's eyes. 

Louis takes the tissue and wipes them himself. 

"Did you tell them?"

"No. There were photos of me here with your mum. I didn't go into work. They put two and two together. I'm so sorry."

"God." Louis is still crying. Nick is a total fucking shit. 

"I love you. We can get through this."

"They ruin everything," Louis says. "They fuck everything up. Fucking papers."

"Lou—"

The nurse sticks his head round the door. "Time's up, lads. Time to go."

Nick closes his eyes. He's right royally fucked this one up. "I'm so sorry, Lou."

Jay comes back in. She looks furious. Nick doesn't blame her. "Don't cry, darling. It's all going to be fine. It doesn't matter who you love. Nobody minds. It's going to be fine."

"How can it be?" Louis asks. 

"Wipe your eyes, come on. Don't get yourself het up. We'll be back tomorrow. We'll work it all out."

Louis doesn't say good bye to Nick, and Nick knows without a shadow of a doubt that he's ruined everything. 

~*~

Jay catches up with him in the lift. She looks like she's ready to spit nails. 

"Five to eight," she says. "You don't bloody tell him that five minutes before the end of visiting hours, what were you thinking? You saw how upset he was. What's wrong with you?""

"I didn't mean to." Nick's heart feels like it's shattering inside. "I couldn't deal with it another night."

"And you're what's important here, is that right? And now we've left him, and he's upset. I didn't take you for an idiot. Or for being cruel. God, Nick."

"He's got the TV, he could have found out at any time."

"Then you should have told him seven hours ago, when we had time to sort him out. Not now. It's your fault we've left him alone." The doors open onto the ground floor, and he follows her out. "If he doesn't want to see you tomorrow, then that's your fault, all right? God." He tries to say something, but she stops him with a hand. "I don't want to talk to you right now. Go home, okay? Just go home."

Nick watches her leave to the soundtrack of his heart tearing itself into pieces. 

~*~

He doesn't sleep. 

~*~

The _Mail_ has photographs of Nick's argument with Jay in the morning. He doesn't get past reading the first few lines on the website before closing the window. _**"Just Go Home, Grimmy.": Nick Grimshaw's bitter argument with boyfriend Louis Tomlinson's mum Jay.**_

_
  * Gay Louis Tomlinson's secret relationship in trouble?
_ _
  * Family don't want Grimmy at the hospital
_ _
  * Insiders say the relationship is on the rocks
_ 


Harry calls him back, but Nick doesn't answer his phone. He doesn't answer his phone to anyone, and he barely eats the toast that his mum makes him for breakfast. She tries to talk to him, but he hasn't got anything to say. 

He won't let her go with him to the hospital. The paparazzi are out in full force outside his flat again, and it's the same at the hospital. There's a new guy working security at the entrance to HDU, and for a heart-stopping moment, he won't let Nick in. Even the realisation that he just didn't recognise him isn't enough to stop the pounding of Nick's heart. 

He stops in the entrance to Louis's room. Louis looks pale, and the TV is on, but he's watching the door. 

Nick doesn't say anything. 

"I'm weeing into a bottle," Louis says. 

"What, right now?"

"Nope. From here on in. Used my first one an hour ago. Catheter's gone."

Nick lets out a breath. "Can I come in?"

"Come here," Louis says. "Sit down."

"You all right?"

"Notice anything different?"

Nick is so tired he can barely see straight. The fact he got here in one piece is fairly miraculous. He's not up for a game of Spot the Difference. "I'm so, so sorry," he says instead. "I can't believe I did that last night. It was so incredibly selfish, and it was terrible of me, and I'm so sorry."

"PCA's gone," Louis says, ignoring him. His voice is a little slow. "Only one drip left, look. And that's the antibiotics. I've had everyone in here this morning, orthopaedics, pain team, surgical guys, all having a bit of a look. Everyone's had a look at me naked. Can't wait until I can put some proper clothes on." He hisses, trying to shift position. "They cut through all my muscles. So much for core strength, I can't even wince without it hurting. Can't breathe or wince. Brilliant."

"Lou," Nick says, softly. "Lou, love. Did you hear what I said?"

"One of you needs to get me a phone," Louis says, without looking at him. "I needed you last night, and I couldn't ring."

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"I couldn't sleep. They had to give me something in the end. I cried. Crying hurts. Everything hurts, but crying's the worst. Do you know how many things move when you cry? Things that hurt?"

"Louis."

"Did you and my mum really have a barney downstairs?" There's a copy of the _Mail_ on the table, next to a glass of squash and a packet of ginger biscuits.

"I deserved every single thing your mum said. What I did last night, telling you like that, it was terrible. It was really selfish. I couldn't even check if you were okay. I don't know what I was thinking."

"You really need to go and get me a phone. Just get me a pay as you go one or something."

"I'll get you one this afternoon, if you want."

"Not yet." Louis swallows. "Just stay. They made me take all these tablets and I don't feel well."

Nick lets out a breath. "How's the spleen?"

"Dunno. I think if it was okay I'd be out of here and on a ward. Do you think if I threw all of these tablets up, they'd make me take them again?"

"Dunno," Nick says. "Do you want me to get anyone?"

Louis shakes his head. "Just hold my hand."

Nick can do that. He can't do the rest of it, but he can do that. The TV washes over them both, laughter from the round table in _Loose Women_. Louis breathes in and out, and Nick can hear him trying to take deep breaths, like the physios told him to. If just breathing in and out hurts, Nick can't bear thinking about what crying did to him.

It goes to an advert break. Yogurt. Another thing he can't really eat. "Remember when Martine McCutcheon used to do these?"

Louis squeezes his hand. "Nick... have you been, like—have you been dealing with this all by yourself? The newspapers and everything. Everyone knowing. Going to work."

"There's been loads of people around, you know." It's not an answer. He keeps staring at the TV. 

"Nick, god." 

"I'm all right. It's not about me. I'm not working this week. That helps. And I tried so hard not to say whether it was true or not. I thought maybe you could wake up and just say we were secret best friends or something, and the newspapers might believe that."

"Is that what you want?"

"Christ, no." Nick rubs his eye with his fist. "Like, if you'd asked me what I wanted before you got hurt, I'd have talked the talk, you know? Pretended I was okay taking it slow." He's so tired. "But when you got hurt, I got to the hospital and I couldn't go in to see you, and I would have told every single person in the world every detail of how much I loved you if I'd known you were okay with it and it meant I got to be with you. I fucking hate hospitals, you know. I hate them. But I'd live here if I had to."

"Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Last night? Not really."

"Is your mum really here to sightsee?"

"No," Nick says, pulling his hand away. "She's here because I'm cracking up."

"Nick—"

Nick cuts him off. "How are you feeling now? Less sick?"

"Like shit. I don't know who said opiates were great, but they're fucking not. It's not making me high. I hate feeling this sick." He reaches for Nick's hand again. "I don't care about the papers. I mean, I do, but I don't either. You've been here all the time. I love you."

"Louis."

"I mean it. God, I feel like I'm going to throw up. Give me a minute."

Nick reaches over and strokes Louis's hair away from his face. "Take it easy," he says. "It's okay. Breathe deep."

"I thought I was going to die. I know you promised me I wouldn't, but I did."

Nick keeps on stroking his hair. "You're not going to die."

"Covered in scars, though." He glances down at his chest. Nick knows there are scars on his legs and his hips and his arm too, and ones from the chest drain and the wound drain. The cut on his face is mostly healed, but that'll scar too. The hair's already growing back over the one on his hairline.

"But not dead."

"No, not dead." Louis smiles at him, tired and pale. "Will you kiss me? Properly."

Nick touches his thumb to Louis's temple. "You're so beautiful," he says. He's never said anything like this to anyone. "Every scar. It's just you surviving."

"Shut up," Louis says. "Everything's a dairy free cheese substitute with you, isn't it?"

"You're my dairy free cheese substitute," Nick counters, and he leans in to touch his mouth to Louis's. He won't ever forget how hospital tastes, and Louis's lips are still dry and chapped, but Louis is kissing him back, and, fuck, Nick's missed him so much. He's missed him so fucking much. 

When he pulls away, he's crying. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so sorry."

"Shush," Louis says. "Don't cry, babe. It's okay. It's all okay."

"No one even asked you if you wanted to come out." Nick wipes his nose on one of Louis's tissues. "Anything I said would have just outed you, so I tried not to say anything at all."

"You've always got something to say," Louis is stroking Nick's hair away from his face now—one careful, shaking hand to Nick's face. "You even talk when you're asleep."

"I don't."

"You do." He pauses. "But you can say whatever you want about us. Think you've earned it, don't you?"

"But what do you want? We never even talked about it."

"Can't exactly go back in, can I? If there's damage, it's already been done."

"Louis—"

"It's the truth. Anyway, you're still mine, aren't you?" He taps his fingers against Nick's jaw. "Fucker."

Nick tries to smile. He's so tired. "Yeah," he says. "I'm still yours."

"Boyfriends," Louis says softly. He's so pale. The shadows round his eyes are dark. "Will you take a picture of me?"

"Why?"

"Put it on your Twitter," Louis says. "Let's do this properly."

"Nothing proper about this."

"There's nothing proper about you." Louis shrugs. "World exclusive though, innit? And I'm giving it to you. To us, really."

"I don't know."

"Well, I do. Take the picture, Grimshaw."

Nick leans in and kisses his temple. "All right."

He takes six pictures in all, from different angles. There's no good position; Louis's scars and wires and bare, skinny chest and broken arm are always going to be there. Louis smiles, though, tired and small, and after the sixth picture, Nick sits back down by his bed and scrolls through them, letting Louis pick the one he likes best. He doesn't miss the part where Louis's eyes get wet; it occurs to him only too late that Louis had no idea what he looks like; there's not exactly a plethora of mirrors around when you're confined to a hospital bed. 

"You okay?"

"Bit of a shock, that's all." He gives the phone back and tucks his hand into Nick's. His fingers are so hot. "That one."

Nick attaches it to a Tweet. "What do you want it to say?"

Louis shrugs. He keeps staring at the picture. 

"How about—" Nick types in _someone's feeling better_ , and angles it so that Louis can see. 

"Let me pick the emojis."

Nick rolls his eyes and pulls up the screen. Louis untangles his fingers from Nick's, and picks the running boy, the red heart, a pink twinkly heart, two boys holding hands, the thumbs up (twice), the sun coming out from behind a cloud, the hospital one, and to finish, the little double ended arrow that says _on!_ underneath. 

"Think that just about says it," Nick says, staring at the screen. "You absolutely sure about this?"

"Positive," Louis says, and he leans over and presses send. "There. No more newspaper exclusives. Should have hashtagged it _fuck the press._ "

"Christ," Nick says. "Your mum's going to kill me."

"She'll have to get through me first," Louis says. 

Nick lays his head down on the bed, cheek to the blanket, looking up at Louis. "I'm sorry about last night. I messed up."

"Thanks, but it's all right," Louis says, and he reaches over to stroke Nick's hair. "It's really all right. None of this is your fault."

~*~

Nick doesn't mean to fall asleep.

~*~

When he wakes up, the light coming through the window's changed and it feels like he's the one waking up from a coma. "God," he says, sitting up. "Why'd you let me fall asleep?" He rubs at his eyes. Harry's sitting the other side of the bed. "How long was I asleep? What time is it?"

"Five-ish," Harry says. 

"You needed to sleep," Louis says. He looks exhausted and a little green about the gills, but his expression is fond.

"You're only allowed two people in here, why didn't you make them wake me up and shove me out in the corridor?"

"Because I wanted you here," Louis says. "And what I say goes."

Nick rolls his eyes, but inside he's trembling. "Bossy. God, my mouth tastes like a sewer. Can I borrow your toothbrush?"

"I've got pneumonia."

"Only just. I'll nab your toothpaste, then." 

"Thief," Louis says, but he's smiling. His iPad's on the table, which means his mum's here. Which means his mum's been in here whilst Nick's been asleep, flat out with his head on Louis's bed. "Go on."

Nick leans in to kiss his head, and then disappears down the corridor to the loos. He can't help but check his phone on the way; just thinking about the picture he tweeted earlier has brought him out in a cold sweat. 

It's been retweeted over sixty thousand times so far. Christ. 

He shouldn't have checked his replies, but sometimes he's a fucking masochist. The first one says _eat glass and die you disgustin fag_. The second one just says _shitfucker_ , and the third one, _Louis don't want you there and neither do his family. Leave him alone. Stop trying to turn him gay._ He stops looking after that. They're not so bad considering the volume of hate he's got recently, but the only crime he's guilty of is falling for Louis, and this doesn't seem like fair retribution. 

He shoves his phone back into his pocket and heads back towards Louis's room. 

Harry's waiting outside when he gets there. 

"Haz?"

"He wants you in there," Harry says, pulling him into a hug. "And I wish I'd been around when you rang last night. I'm worried about you."

Nick tries to smile. "I'm all right."

"You're not," Harry says. "Go on, go in to him. I'm going to take Jay for a coffee."

God, Jay. Nick really needs to speak to her. 

"Go on," Harry says, nudging him inside Louis's room. "You're wanted."

Louis frowns at him once the door's closed behind Harry. He's blushing.

"What's up?"

"I have to wee, and I need your help."

"What sort of help?" Nick comes over to the bed. Louis has a cardboard bottle thing in his hand, like a milk bottle but with an angled neck. Nick drops a kiss to the top of Louis's head. 

"I've only got one hand and it's sore cos of the drip. I need to hold the blankets up and then, like, hold it on, but the table's in the way. It's the first time by myself. The nurse helped me earlier."

"And you didn't want Harry to help you?" Nick rolls his eyes. "Bet he's hurt."

"Stop making jokes, this is embarrassing."

"It's not embarrassing, love," Nick says. A month ago, this would have been embarrassing. Now Nick doesn't care. He's seen the contents of Louis's chest leak out into a wound drain. He's still squeamish, but not about piss. "Do you want me to hold the blankets up and move the table, hold or the bottle?"

"I've got to figure out how to do the bottle sometime." Louis is still red. "Go on. Do it."

Nick lifts the blankets up a little. He hasn't seen Louis naked from the waist down for a while. There's a table holding the blankets up over his hips, and another at his feet; there are casts on his ankles from the surgery to pin the breaks. The scar down his stomach ends above his pubic hair, splitting off into a little T at the bottom. There are stitched wounds down over his thighs, and smaller ones over his hips; Nick keeps forgetting about the surgery they'd done immediately after the accident on his thighs and pelvis. It's all so caught up in Louis being unconscious and fighting for his life; what went on beneath the blankets had slipped his attention. Nestled in the curve of his thighs is his dick. Nick moves the table away to give Louis better access. 

"Are you still going to fancy me if I'm covered in scars?" Louis asks, clearly forcing a laugh. It looks like it might hurt.

"You'll be all rugged and manly," Nick says, holding up the blankets so that Louis can try and angle the bottle. He tries to use his other hand, the one that's still in the cast, but he's awkward and stiff and not used to moving. It takes him a moment to get his dick in the bottle. Nick lowers the blankets a little. "So, then."

"Performance anxiety," Louis says. God, he looks tired. His skin is washed out and the circles under his eyes are almost purple. 

"I could sing," Nick suggests. "Or find a running water app on my phone."

"Shut up," Louis says, still blushing. After a moment, he starts to wee into the bedpan. Nick risks a glance to make sure it isn't leaking, but it's all good. He smiles at Louis instead. 

When he's done, Nick takes the bedpan—still warm—and helps rearrange the bedclothes whilst Louis presses the call button for the nurse. It's the guy again, and he comes in and Nick steps back whilst he checks that Louis's all right, and takes the bedpan. 

"Looks like we're losing you in an hour or so," the nurse tells Louis. "They're putting the final details together for your transfer now."

Louis glances at Nick. "Did you know?"

Nick shakes his head. Information appears to be on a strictly need to know basis right now, and Nick clearly doesn't need to know. He doesn't cry. Instead, he starts to gather up some of the cards and detritus that Louis's gathered in his room; his toiletries and the packet of Skips Nick had dumped on the table last night and not bothered to explain. There are new pyjamas in the cupboard, but Louis hadn't ever got well enough to wear them. He stacks them all up on one of the chairs, even as the nurse continues to make his checks. 

"Nick," Louis says. "Nick."

Nick doesn't know where Louis's mum is. He needs to apologise to her, if she'll hear him out. "It's okay," he says. "We'll get you all fixed up and ready to leave. One step closer to home, huh? One step closer to home."

Louis gives him a grateful, tired smile, and Nick tries desperately to hold on. 

~*~

Jay's brought in one of Louis's sports bags to pack into, which is an indication she knew the move was about to happen. Nick takes his orchid back, since that's not going to travel well, and the rest of the flowers they donate to the unit to find a home for. 

There's an awkward, uneasy silence between Jay and Nick, and Nick is way, way too tired to unpick it now.

"What you did last night was unforgiveable," Jay says in an undertone, when Louis is out of earshot for a minute and the nurses are busy with him. "And I'm not sorry I yelled at you. I'm sorry about the article in the _Mail_ , though. Louis clearly loves you. Everyone who sees him knows that. And he's the one who gets to pick who's allowed to visit him in here. Not us. Not his family." She takes a breath. "But for the record, his family want you here. I want you here."

"I know I messed up," Nick says. "I know it, all right? I just—I let me and what I was worried about overtake everything else, and I was wrong. I'm sorry."

She deflates a little. "I know this isn't normal," she says. "Being here. I know I've not asked you what it's been like. And it's not that I don't care. I think if everything else was normal I'd care an awful lot. But I can't right now. There's just, like, no space. There's just him." She risks a glance towards the bed. "He's my boy. He'll always be my little boy. I'm trying to look after my others too. They all need me."

"I love him too," Nick says. "I really love him."

Her eyes are wet. "I think he might be on the mend, you know."

Nick lets out a ragged breath. "I hope so. God, I hope so."

She pulls him into a hug, wrapping her arms around him, and he hugs her back, burying his face in her neck. It's been so, so hard. It's been weeks of constant fear and worry, and pain and suffering, and the fact it might be changing for the better is terrifying all by itself. 

"Are you coming to the new hospital with us?" she asks, when they pull away. 

Nick glances over at Louis, who looks exhausted. "Maybe he just wants his mum tonight."

"He wants you too. Come."

Nick is so tired he can't keep his eyes open. His mum's at home, waiting for news. But he can't refuse Louis anything. "Yeah," he says, "okay."

~*~

Louis's room in the private hospital is quiet and peaceful and comes with an en-suite bathroom, a flat-screen television, a telephone, and free Wi-Fi. There's a visitor lounge at the end of the corridor, with complimentary tea and coffee. Louis's security team is set up in a guest room between Louis's room and the entrance to the ward; they're running a three-shift system and Nick's emailed a copy of the rota minutes after shaking hands with Freddie, the guy doing the night shift. 

Money might not be able to buy happiness, but it sure as fuck buys comfort and nice chairs. 

Louis had been given an awful lot of pain medication for the journey, and he's sleepy and out of it as they get him settled in, Jay unpacking his belongings into the cupboards and drawers as the nurses bustle around, adjusting his drip and doing his obs. They'd already had to wait twenty minutes whilst they moved him into the room. But now they're with him, and Nick, feeling sick with exhaustion, sits in the corner and refuses to check his phone. There's a box on his knee, full of little notes and cards. 

Hundreds of bunches of flowers had been sent to the hospital over the past few weeks, from all around the world, and virtually none of them had made it into Louis's room. A lot of the cards had, though, the little notes that came with the flowers, someone, somewhere in the hospital, distributing the flowers elsewhere and collecting all the cards for Louis. Nick has a box of them on his knee; there are another three on the floor by the door. Jay's supposed to be taking them home. All of these good thoughts for Louis, coming from all over the world; it doesn't feel right to just throw them out. 

Nick suspects they'll mean a lot to Louis once he's well enough to look through them.

"You're still here," Louis says sleepily, later. He can't seem to keep his eyes open.

"Course I am," Nick says, standing up so that he can come over and stroke Louis's hair away. He puts the box down on the chair. "And so's your mum. You should get some proper rest, though. I'm going to come back and see you tomorrow, all right?"

Louis nods. His movements are lethargic and slow. "Love you." 

"Love you too," Nick says. "Get some rest, all right? And I'll see you tomorrow." He should be happy, leaving Louis when he knows he's doing better, when he knows that they're still together and the newspapers haven't succeeded in ripping them apart, but he isn't. Everything is overwhelming and terrifying, and he doesn't know how to make it stop. 

He really, really doesn't know how to make it stop. 

He waits outside for Jay, listening to her say her goodbyes. He falls into step beside her as she comes out, and they leave together, saying good bye to Freddie in the makeshift security office as they go. 

"Why don't you come in later tomorrow?" Jay suggests, when they're in the lift. "You look exhausted. The girls want to come in and spend the afternoon, so why don't you have the evening? We've told everyone else to give him a day to recover from the move. Maybe you and him could have some time, just the two of you. And you'll get a lie in."

"What time?" Nick asks. The idea of resting tomorrow sounds like a dream. 

"Five thirty? You'll have until eight then, just the two of you."

Nick lets out a breath. His phone's vibrating in his pocket. He's turned off Twitter notifications and he's ignoring everyone else. "Yeah," he says. "That sounds great."

~*~

He checks his phone in the car, unable to help himself. His masochistic tendencies run deep. 

The latest message is an email from Louis, sent from his iPad. 

_Lpve you uu u xxx xZx_

It makes it all worthwhile. He doesn't look at anything else. 

~*~

There's a picture of Louis up on his Twitter, attached to little emojis of hearts and boys holding hands. He's confirmed the rumours for every newspaper in the world with a half-baked interest in One Direction to cover; it's not surprising he has to pull over by the side of the road on the way home and vomit into a bush. His Twitter mentions are full of people wishing he was dead. 

_Infamy,_ he remembers as he wipes his mouth and tries to stop his hands from shaking, _they've all got it infamy_. It doesn't make him laugh.

~*~

He makes it home, and when he does, he barely manages to get out of his clothes, passing out as soon as he faceplants onto his bed, not even staying awake long enough for the toast his mum's making for him. 

He sleeps for fourteen hours. 

When he wakes up, his mum is talking to someone in the living room, their replies a low rumble he can't quite make out. He stumbles into the loo for a piss, then brushes his teeth before wandering out to find out who's here. 

Harry's on the sofa, Pig in his lap, drinking a cup of tea and eating toast next to Nick's mum. 

"Nice to see you too, Nicholas," his mum says. "Feel better for getting some sleep?"

"Marginally," he says, checking his phone. Six messages from Louis. They're all badly typed. One of them is a picture of rubbery scrambled eggs and wet spinach. Another is a cup of tea. The first one says _sleept ok wok up n didn know whete I was._ Nick rather suspects the pain medication, coupled with Louis's left-handed typing, is to blame for the virtually incomprehensible spelling. 

He sits down in between Harry and his mum, and rests his cheek against Harry's shoulder. 

"Hiya, stranger," he says. "What are you doing here?"

Harry wraps an arm around him. "Thought I'd come and see how you were doing. See if you fancied a walk or something. We could take Pig up the hill. Or down to Regent's Park. Blow the cobwebs away before you leave for the hospital."

"No one says that anymore," Nick says. "Unless you're my mum."

"Oi," his mum says. "Anyway, that's perfect, because I'm going to go and see your Auntie Joy this afternoon. She and Uncle Simon are staying with Claire in St John's Wood."

"I have no idea who those people are," Nick says, hiding his face in Harry's neck. He's exhausted, worn down, frazzled to an inch of his life. He can't bear to think about yesterday's tweet, and what that means for him today. 

"Yes, you do," his mum says. "They used to live on the Crescent. They had that house next to the one with that family with the motorbikes, don't you remember? Joy said they had three new kitchens in three years, as your dad says, it's not really surprising they ended up having the house repossessed."

"Still nothing," Nick says. 

"Two daughters, both of them around Jane's age. Claire, and Becky. Becky and Jane took dancing lessons in that church hall near where you went to Beavers. They moved to Ramsbottom before Liv was born. They send the Christmas cards with the letters about how brilliant everyone they're related to is."

There's a faint grinding of cogs somewhere in the recesses of Nick's brain. "Oh," he says. "Right."

"So," his mum goes on. "I'm going to go and have a coffee with Joy, and you're going to go for a walk with Harry, and there can be two whole hours when I'm not worried about you."

"Mum—"

"Harry, see if you can get him to open up a bit, can you? He's locked himself up pretty tightly. He's gone quiet, and we all know that means he's a mess."

Nick drops his face into his hands. "Mum."

"You've got to talk to someone, Nicholas, and if it's not going to be me, and it's not your other friends, then it has to be someone. I can't imagine it's that boyfriend of yours right now. You can't keep it all locked up inside. I know it's been terrible, these past few weeks, but you've got to talk to someone. And Harry's here. "

"Fine," Nick says. "I'll go for a walk with you, Harry. But right now I'm going to get a shower."

Harry pats the back of his hand against Nick's thigh. "He's getting better, you know."

"It's only just beginning," Nick says, and knowing that it's true is exhausting. It's so fucking exhausting. 

~*~

They sit at the top of Primrose Hill with Pig nosing about around their feet, happy as anything. It's cold and damp and misty, so the park's virtually deserted. They have a couple of takeaway coffees and posh rustic bread sandwiches, and damp bums from the bench, but London's spread out in front of them, overcast and barely visible. 

Nick loves his city. He loves his city, and his flat, and his job, but it feels like he loves Louis more. He loves Louis in a fucked up, obsessive, desperate kind of a way, like Louis is a part of him, their roots entwined together beneath the soil, and right now Louis is broken and sick and Nick needs to protect him, shield him from the elements with just the power of himself. 

He's not sure he's strong enough to keep doing it. 

"So," Harry says, carefully tearing his sandwich in half and swapping it for half of Nick's. Harry steals a sun-dried tomato from the little pot of antipasto they've got on the bench between them. "When are you going back to work?"

"Dunno," Nick says, staring down at his sandwich. He doesn't remember eating taking this much forethought and energy before. "I can't think about it."

There's a pause. "You have to," Harry says. "You can't be off indefinitely."

"When Louis's better."

"Nick. What are you doing? And at least try your sandwich. You haven't eaten since yesterday."

"I don't know. I don't fucking know." Before he knows it, there are tears pricking at his eyes. He scrubs his eyes with his fists. "Harry, what if he died?"

Harry rubs his back. "He didn't, though. He might have done, but he didn't. He's alive. He's so alive."

"Everything's happened wrong," Nick says. "Everyone finding out, and the papers, and him not even knowing. It all happened wrong."

"It was an accident. Accidents happen. And we didn't lose him. We've still got him."

"He's so broken."

"He's not as broken as he was, though. That's a good thing."

"He's in the papers."

"He's famous. Of course he's in the papers. You can't protect him against that. Fame is just, like, I don't know. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean he's a good person or a good friend or anything. It doesn't mean anything. We know what he's like. What he's worth. The papers are just, I don't know, there."

"I should have done better," Nick says, and he scrubs at his face with his hands. "I should have been more careful in ICU, or I shouldn't have visited him, or something. They wouldn't have found out then. If I could have just kept away, he would have got to come out if he wanted to, and not because they forced him to—"

Harry covers Nick's hand with his own. "Stop it," he says. "Say it was you. Say it was your accident, and you woke up in hospital. Would you want Louis there?"

"Not if it made things difficult for him."

"But what would you want? If he'd made the decision to be there if you wanted him to be."

Nick's hands are shaking. "Of course I'd want him there. But it's not the same."

"You know," Harry says slowly, "this might be the best time ever for Louis to come out. Everyone's so grateful he's alive, him coming out has kind of lost the power it might have had. It's not—" He stops. "The two of you. It's not immediate, you know? He's in hospital. Stories lose power. They can say what they want, it doesn't hurt Louis. It's old news."

"He's got his iPad now. It won't be old to him when he sees it all."

Harry makes a face. "It's shit. I know it's shit. But it's not like he's never been in the papers before. And Louis's getting better. He's got you and he's got us. That's good."

Nick nods. He feels dazed and a little confused, like he's on the outside, looking in. Nothing in his life feels real. Louis is just in the middle, the centre of everything, and the rest of it has just got blurry and unimportant at the edges. He doesn't know how to change the focus. He's so tense he could snap under the pressure. 

Harry leans over and tears the two halves of sandwiches in Nick's lap into half again. "Try and eat one of each, come on. You've got to eat. And come over to mine tomorrow. Have a glass of wine and I'll cook us something. Nothing big. We can listen to some music or watch a film, or something."

"I'm seeing Louis."

"Not all day. Come afterwards. Please, Nick."

Nick tries to eat some of his sandwich. It sticks in his throat, but Harry is looking so hopeful in his general direction that he takes another bite. "All right."

"You can't protect him from everything. He wouldn't want you to. You're his boyfriend, not his security guard. He's got publicists and lawyers and security. We pay people to do all that stuff. He's only got one boyfriend."

"That no one knew about."

"We know now. And Louis is happy we all know. He's happy getting to see you everyday." He pauses. "You could take your laptop in with you tonight, you and Louis could watch a film or something. He might like that. Something to take his mind off being in hospital."

"I don't like films."

Harry rolls his eyes. "Take episodes of _The Simpsons_ then."

"Fine."

Harry tucks his hand into the curve of Nick's elbow. "You'll get there, you know. It'll be all right."

Nick's not sure he believes him. He's not sure he believes anything anymore.

He eats the other sandwich, drinks his coffee, and tries to hold on. 

~*~

Louis is sitting up in bed when he gets there later, wearing a hospital gown. He looks tired and a little flushed, but nothing can dull his smile when he sees Nick. 

"Hi, babe," Nick says. The girls are still here, Lottie sitting by Louis's bed, the twins playing a board game with Fizzy on the table by the TV. "Hi, girls. Where's your mum?"

"Gone to change Doris. Ernie wouldn't stop crying so Dan's taken him for a walk," Lottie tells him. 

Louis smiles up at him, sliding his hand into Nick's. He's pale and looks worn out. Nick rather suspects all of his family at once might have been more than Louis could handle. "Did you bring your laptop?"

"Did indeed," he says, putting his bag down on the floor. "And snacks."

"Date night," Lottie grins. "It's nice, you know," she says to Louis, "that you've got a boyfriend. Not that you didn't tell us about him, but that you've got one."

"Thanks," Louis says, meeting Nick's gaze over Lottie's shoulder. "He's pretty great, isn't he??"

"Uh-huh," she says. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Lottie," Nick warns. Louis looks tired enough without being given the third degree. 

"Dunno," Louis says. "We were having too much fun keeping it secret, I suppose. Stupid, looking back." He smiles sleepily at Nick. "But fun."

"But fun," Nick agrees. He leans over to stroke Louis's hair away from his face. It's getting long. "How are you feeling?"

"Crap," Louis says. He manages a half smile. "Not as crap as last week, though. Not, like, pneumonia crap."

"Thank god," Nick says fervently. 

"Right, come on girls. Time to go. Get your stuff together." It's Jay, coming back with a baby on her hip. She kisses Nick hello, and lets him have a hold of the baby as she starts to gather up her other children and their detritus. Doris is sleepy and placid in Nick's arms, and he sits down by the side of Louis's bed so that Louis can reach over and stroke her hair. 

"I'll give you a ring in the morning," Jay says, as the twins put their board game into an Asda bag and the older girls gather up orange peel and juice cartons and magazines. 

"Me, or Nick?" Louis asks. There's a brand new iPhone on the table. 

"Both of you," Jay says, leaning over to kiss Louis's cheek. "Be good, the pair of you."

"I've only got one working limb," Louis points out. "How am I supposed to cause trouble with that?"

"Swivel on it," Lottie says, under her breath, and Nick does his best not to react. He's not sure it works. He hides his grin in his fist.

It still takes them another ten minutes to clear out, and by that time, Doris is asleep against Nick's chest, and Nick's half-convinced she should just stay here with him forever: a living, breathing weight in his arms. He kisses her cheek before relinquishing her to her mum. 

Afterwards, when it's just the two of them, Nick pulls up his seat close to the bed, and curls his hand into Louis's. "Just the two of us, huh?"

"Yep," Louis says. "You looked good. With Doris."

"I like babies," Nick says. "And they like me."

"Well," Louis says. "It looked nice."

Nick smiles at that. He's never really considered a possible future that might include a child; but maybe he should. He loves children. It's just that relationships have never loved him. "How are you feeling, love?"

"Knackered," Louis says, but he tries to smile. "They're going to make me stand up tomorrow."

"You've got broken legs. Are they trying to fuck you up?"

"They're in walking casts, apparently." He squeezes Nick's hand. "What if I can't?"

"Dunno. It'll be like the ventilator, I suppose. They'll try again the next day, or something. It'll be fine. You're great. If you're not up to it yet, you will be."

Louis lay back against the pillows. "I don't remember the ventilator."

"Good. I'll remember it enough for both of us."

Louis squeezes his hand. "I'm sorry. That you had to go through this."

"Don't be. You're alive. That's all I care about."

"What did you bring for us to watch?"

" _The Simpsons Movie_ ," Nick says. "With back up options of _The South Park Movie_ , and Harry says you love _The Avengers_. Spoiler: I hated that at the cinema."

"We need to change your mind about that, then. But, like, not tonight. Can we just put _The Simpsons_ on?"

Nick nods, reaching for his bag and his laptop. "I got snacks, too. In case there was anything you fancied."

Louis makes a face. "Did you pick the snacks?"

"I can pick good snacks."

"No," Louis says, "you can't."

"Well, it's a good thing I stole them from your cupboard, then."

"I like that I've got a cupboard," Louis says. 

"I like it, too." He gets some Skips, a Wagon Wheel, two Tunnock's Teacakes, and a packet of Jaffa Cakes out of his bag, followed by a stick of Pepperami and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. "You might not want any of that, but I thought you might want a bit of something out of it."

Louis just smiles at him. "We should have gone public before, you know. I could have shown off how great you were when I had more than one working limb."

"Hindsight, huh," Nick says. He sets up his Macbook on the table, moving the snacks out of the way, and loads up the film. 

"You look knackered," Louis says,. "How are you doing, really?"

Nick lets out a breath. "Honestly?" he says. "I'm fucked up. But it's okay. I'm okay. I'm getting there."

He desperately wants it to be true. 

He knows it isn't. 

Louis bumps his hand into Nick's. "It's going to be all right, you know. I mean. I know it isn't right now. But I'm going to come home soon, and we don't have to sneak around anymore. I can just, like, go for a drink with you or go to the shops. Answer the phone when it's you and I'm around other people. Wander up to your doorstep in broad daylight."

"Sounds fancy," Nick says. 

"I don't want fancy," Louis says. "I never wanted fancy."

"I know," Nick says. 

"I like cock," Louis says, "and I love you. And everyone knows that now."

"You're taking this a lot better than I thought you might, you know. I thought you'd freak out."

"I've got a new and exciting perspective on life," Louis says. "Anyway, I was never ashamed of you. You didn't think I was, did you? It was just... what we were doing was fun. I loved it."

"I know," Nick says. For the past few weeks he's done nothing but associate how the two of them were before the accident with guilt and regret; they should have told their friends, they should have told their families, they shouldn't have hidden it. He'd forgotten the other side of it, the two of them being happy and falling in love, spending time together because they wanted to, because they enjoyed each other's company, because they were having fun. 

"I don't care if everyone knows I'm with you," Louis says. "I care that if you were in an accident I wouldn't be able to get in to see you. No one would ring me to tell me you were hurt."

Nick has cried so much. He never wants to cry again. He hates it. He squeezes Louis's hand instead. "No chance of that now. You'd be the first one on everyone's list. I'm pretty sure that if I get a papercut at work, Finchy's going to be on the phone to you, making sure you know."

"As it should be," Louis says. "Tell him that's exactly what he should be doing."

"How are you feeling?" Nick asks, changing the subject. He just—it's so hard, all of the time. Everything's so difficult. He wants to fast forward time until Louis is home, and safe, and better, and out of bed. 

"Worn out." He smiles. It looks tired at the edges. "But I'm glad you're here."

"You want anything to eat?"

Louis shakes his head. "Put the film on," he says. "And stay with me."

"All right," Nick says, and does. 

~*~

When Nick gets to the hospital at lunchtime the following day, Louis is sitting in the big chair by his bed, wearing a dressing gown over his hospital gown. It's the first time Nick's properly seen Louis's legs in casts. 

"Hi," Louis says, beaming. "Guess who was sick this morning? Spoiler, it was me."

"God," Nick says, dumping his bag down on the bed and coming over to touch his hand to Louis's forehead. "Are you getting sick again? Is it the pneumonia? Were they right to be worried about your spleen?"

"Don't worry," Louis says. He looks pale, but not particularly unhappy. "I'd been laid down so long that I threw up when I had to stand up. Cool, right?"

Nick sits down heavily in the chair by Louis's side. "Don't do that to me." He lets out a breath. "Hey, wait, you stood up?"

"With the help of two physios and a sick bowl." He pauses. "And about half an hour. Do you know, if they cut through all the muscles in your stomach, you're fucked for core strength? That's my walking frame. I took, like, one step from my bed to here, but whatever."

Nick doesn't particularly want to think about them cutting through any bit of him. He avoids that particular line of thought. "That's brilliant," he says. "You stood up. That's so fucking brilliant, Lou."

"I know. I was going to email you and tell you, but my iPad's over there, and I'm over here, and I'm never moving again in case I throw up, and anyway, I wanted to surprise you."

"Consider me surprised," he says, leaning over and pressing his cheek to Louis's, kissing his ear. "And pleased. I'm so pleased." He sits back and unzips his jacket, taking it off and dumping it on the end of Louis's bed. "Any other news?"

"They've got me on laxatives," Louis says. "Bet you think I'm sexy now."

Nick's given up being worried by bodily functions. It's all a bit revolting, but it's not anything to be scared of. He doesn't know exactly when the change happened, but he suspects it's around the time he thought Louis was going to die. He doesn't particularly want to think about operations, but he's okay with bodily functions. "I'm probably always going to think you're sexy," he says. He pauses. "Are they working?"

Louis shrugs. "Not yet. Do you know how long it's been since I went to the toilet?"

Nick wrinkles his nose. "Is there a prize for getting the right answer?"

"My company," Louis says. "And the answer is, before the accident. Did you win?"

"You're perky."

"I'd pretend it's me, but I think it's the drugs," Louis says. "Half an hour ago I was feeling terrible. I'm pretty much a hundred per cent sure it's the drugs." He squeezes Nick's hand. "I missed you."

"It's because I tried to tempt you with a Wagon Wheel last night, isn't it?"

"Absolutely." Louis lets out a breath. "The biggest achievement of my day was standing up, Nick. How long is it going to take for me to get better?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry. But you're doing really well. Maybe if you can, you know, go to the toilet and get around a bit, they'll let you home soon."

Louis's eyes are bright. "Do you think so? I hate it in here. Hospitals are shit. I want to go home."

"It's been a while since you ignored me and played Fifa."

"You should play against me."

"Yeah, yeah," Nick says. He's doing his best to sound okay, and not like he's falling apart. "Ask them, though. Ask them what you need to do to get home."

"Will you be there? If I go home?"

Nick stills. "Do you want me to be?"

Louis is quiet for a moment. "Yeah," he says. "After everything you've been through—"

"Surely we should be talking about what you've been through, not me—"

"After everything we've both been through, I just want to wake up in the morning and have you there, all right? Will you come and stay?"

"Course," Nick says, and his voice catches. "Course I will, you idiot. I'll have to bring my dog, though."

Louis squeezes his hand again. "Good thing Pig likes me better than you, then."

"Don't say such terrible things. Your drip's gone. I only just noticed."

"No more antibiotics," Louis says. "I could put a t-shirt on now I don't have to fuck around with tubes and stuff, but I can't quite manage putting my pyjama bottoms on or taking them off, so I'm stuck in the gown. I hate this gown."

"If you need help, I could—"

"Think it needs more than just you to help me to stand up," Louis says. "And I'd need to push them down to use the fucking bedpan. Maybe tomorrow, though. But thanks."

"If you're sure. Are you thirsty? Your tea's gone cold."

Nick ends up going down the corridor to get Louis some tea, and he stops off at the nurse's station on the way back to ask how Louis is doing now that he's stood up. The nurses are Graham and Charley, and they're both very nice, and positive about Louis's progress. 

When he sits back down again, putting two cups of tea on the table in front of them, Louis pokes him in the thigh. "Turned the radio on this morning," he says. "Had to download the BBC app and everything. How come you weren't on it?"

Nick shrugs. "Still on compassionate leave," he says. "I was falling apart. But thanks for downloading the app."

"God," Louis says. "Nick, babe."

"You're the poorly one."

"And you're the one holding me together. When are you going back?"

"Harry asked me that yesterday. I think he and my mum are convinced I'm on the edge of some kind of breakdown."

"Are you?"

Nick thinks about rolling his eyes, then doesn't. "I've been so scared," he says. "I'm still so fucking scared. I don't know, all right. I don't know how to not be terrified anymore."

"It's not fair," Louis says. "None of this is fucking fair."

"I know," Nick says, and he does. He really does. "I think I should probably go back to work. I'll ring them tomorrow and tell them." He doesn't want to, but then he has no fucking idea what he does want, or what's wrong with him. None of what's in his head makes any sense at all. 

"Good," Louis says. "Do something that isn't just coming to see me in bloody hospital all the time." He pauses. "Have you read the papers?"

"No. I mean. Not really. I looked a bit."

" _Grimmy's in love_ ," Louis says. "I liked that one."

That had been _The Sun_ yesterday; a front page headline over Nick's Twitter picture of Louis. _The Daily Express_ had intimated that Louis had yet to speak on the subject of his sexuality, and had described Nick like a sex-mad predatory obsessive, but as it wasn't like out-of-date homophobia was anything new in Nick's life, he'd let it slide. 

"It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be," Louis says. "I looked on my iPad this morning." His smile dims. "I saw the pictures from the crash."

Nick shakes his head. "Don't," he says. "Don't look at them."

"Too late, they were in the article. I don't even remember it. It's okay. I don't even remember buying that car. How on earth did I make it out of alive?"

Nick doesn't mean to cry. It comes over him too quickly for him to do anything about. It catches in his chest and his sob comes without his permission. "Don't," he says. "Please, Louis. Don't. I can't."

"Nick—oh, Christ. Nick, please. Don't cry. It's okay. I'm okay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I didn't know if you were dead or alive," Nick says. "I saw that video from the crash and I had no one to ring and I didn't know if you were already dead."

"Nick, please. I'm sorry. I thought cos I didn't remember—I thought you'd read the article too."

Nick can't stop remembering. He remembers all the fucking time, that moment where he saw the BBC Breaking News Twitter, and his world as he knew it had ended. He can't stop reliving that fucking night, the endless hours, the endless days sitting in that hospital waiting for Louis to stop being on the edge of death. That video of Louis's car by the side of the road replays in his head on a constant loop. Even seeing Louis here in front of him isn't enough to make it go away. Knowing Louis is getting better doesn't stop him reliving the days when he wasn't. 

That's why he hasn't read much of the stuff about the two of them being together, because it makes him relive the fucking crash, and he can't. He _can't_. He relives it enough as it is. 

"I thought you were going to die," Nick says again. "I thought you might already be dead."

"I'm not," Louis says. He reaches for Nick's hand. "I'm not. I'm here. I'm so sorry."

Nick's shaking. He can't stop. 

"You're scaring me," Louis says. "Look at me."

Nick can't. Sometimes he looks at Louis and all he sees is ICU and the ventilator, and the nurses rushing into Louis's room because he wasn't strong enough to live by himself. 

"Nick," Louis says, louder this time. "Nick. It's okay. You've got to look at me else I'm calling the nurse."

Nick tears his attention away from the repeating video in his head of Louis almost dying. "Lou," he manages. "Louis."

"Babe," Louis says, and Louis's crying now. "Where did you go?"

 _Somewhere you weren't_ , he thinks. "I don't know how to make it stop," he says. "It's like a nightmare I can't turn off. I keep seeing you. I keep seeing that video of the crash. I keep seeing you in ICU."

Louis is squeezing his hand so hard it hurts. "Look at me," he says. "Look at me. I'm going to be okay. I stood up. I'm not dying. I'm right here."

He doesn't sound like he's right here. He sounds like he's far away, like he's talking underwater. 

It's a minute or so later when he nods. He focuses in on Louis's hand around his. "I know," he says, and part of him does. It's just the rest of him that doesn't. 

"I'm going to call my mum," Louis says, but Nick shakes his head. 

"Don't. I was going to Harry's after this."

"Then I'll call him instead," Louis says. "Give me your phone."

Nick's hand is still shaking so much he can barely get his bag open. Louis watches him, chewing on his chapped lips. Nick never had brought him any lip balm. He unlocks his phone, and hands it to Louis. 

"It's not Nick. It's Louis," Louis says, phone to his ear. "Can you come in? Like, now. Nick's upset. He doesn't want me to call my mum. I want you to come and get him."

Nick doesn't listen to anything after that. He goes into Louis's en-suite and splashes water on his face; he's pale and there are dark circles under his eyes. Louis's toiletries aren't in here yet, so he has to go back into the room to root through his drawers for toothpaste. If he concentrates on the here and now, he doesn't start replaying the aftermath of the crash in his head. 

Louis puts the phone down. "He's coming in now," he says. 

"Does your toothbrush still have pneumonia?" Nick asks, coming back out of the drawer with Louis's Colgate.

"I think so," Louis says. "Sit down."

"I'm fine," Nick says. "It was just a thing. Call Harry back and tell him not to come."

Louis shakes his head. "Sit down, please. Please, Nick. You're scaring me. You were upset five seconds ago."

"I'm fine," Nick says again. He sits down again. He feels sick. "It was just—a thing."

"You said," Louis says. "Is this what you meant when you said you felt like you were cracking up?"

"Everyone else is coping," Nick says. 

Louis rubs his forehead with his broken arm. "Babe," he says. "I don't know if you are."

"I just need some sleep."

Louis swallows. He looks paler, and worried, and Nick hates that he's made him look like this. "I don't feel well," he says. "I want to help but I don't feel well."

Nick wants to cry again. "Don't worry about me," he says. "Concentrate on you. You've got to take it easy."

"I want to help," Louis says. "You need me."

"I need some sleep," Nick says. "I'll be fine. Honestly. I'm just knackered. Nothing to worry about." He's not sure his smile looks real. 

He rubs Louis's back instead, stroking the back of his neck as he breathes in and out, settling him through another wave of nausea. 

None of this is fair, is the thing. None of this is fucking fair. 

~*~

Harry takes him home. They leave Nick's car at the hospital, after Harry has a conversation with Preston in Louis's security office. They leave Louis alone, and Nick wouldn't normally allow that, but Harry is firm. He's so rarely like that, and Nick's too tired to fight with him, so they leave Louis sitting up in his room with the television on, Louis having a quiet conversation with Harry whilst Nick's in the loo. 

He can hear them talking, but he pretends he can't. _I'm worried about him_ and _he completely freaked out_ and _he says he's just tired_ and _I've tried to talk to him_. 

He just needs to sleep, that's all. Sleep, and forget Louis's accident ever happened. 

"I'm okay," he tells Harry, as Harry drives him home. 

"You're not," Harry says. "We can all see it. Your mum's worried. I'm worried. Louis's worried."

"I'm just tired."

Harry leans over the steering wheel so he can get a better view of the junction, then turns right. "They gave us the number of this guy," he says, slowing down for the roundabout. "After the accident."

"What guy?"

"Someone we could talk to. If we were, like, traumatised or upset or whatever."

"What, just like someone at the record label or whatever? Thanks, but no thanks."

"He doesn't work for them. I think he's like a doctor or something." He glances at Nick. "You don't think it might help, to talk about it?"

"This isn't America," Nick says. This isn't the right time to have this conversation. Trapped in the car with Harry, he can't leave. He can't yell, because Harry's driving. He wants to yell so fucking much. It's locked up inside of him, all of this anger, the fury at how unfair it's all been. His brilliant, vibrant Louis, reduced to someone who throws up because he has to get out of bed. 

"You're traumatised," Harry says. "You don't think we can see how much you've had to deal with by yourself? And we can't help. We can't fix it for you."

"You've all had the same shit to deal with," Nick says. He has to physically stop himself from snapping, digging his fingers into his thighs. 

"Except we haven't," Harry says. "Because we didn't have to fight our way into the hospital just to see him. Because the papers didn't out us, or shove us on the front cover, and we didn't have to deal with telling Louis that everyone knew about him. We didn't find out from fucking Twitter."

Nick looks out of the window. "They put pictures of his car in every single article about the two of us. I can't look at anything because it's always fucking there. His car. That picture of me asleep in ICU. He's barely alive."

"He's alive now," Harry says. "He's getting better."

"I can't get it out of my head," Nick says. "I try, and I can't."

"Will you talk to that guy? If I set it up? Will you talk to him?"

Nick's phone vibrates in his lap. It's a message from Louis that says, _I want you to be ok_ , followed by two little running man emojis and the two guys holding hands. 

"All right," he says, after a minute. "If you set it up, I'll talk to him."

~*~

His first appointment is in the morning at ten am. He cries for the whole appointment about how unfair it is, and how he can't make any of it go away, and the guy—Jeff—offers him a box of tissues and a glass of water, and lets him cry it out. 

"Feel better?" he asks, after fifty minutes of Nick sobbing has left Nick with nothing left to cry with. He's dry inside, like a husk.

"No," Nick says. He relents. "Well. Maybe less like I'm going to explode."

"Good," Jeff says. He has dark hair, a dark beard, and dark-framed glasses. He's wearing ill-fitting dark trousers, but with bright yellow socks. He's older than Nick might have expected. "That's a good start. You strayed away from my original question, though."

"Oh. I don't remember what it was. I'm sorry."

"It was _why don't you tell me the story in your own words_? We can come back to it, though, in our next session."

"You want to see me again?"

"I think that might be helpful for you."

Nick tries to laugh. "I'm not surprised you think I'm mental, after I've just crazy cried in your office for an hour."

Jeff taps his pen against his page. "Nick, you've been through a highly traumatic event. Given that—even without any other factors—I'd be more surprised if you weren't reacting by periods of crying or frustration or anxiety." He puts his notepad down. "You will get through this, you know. With the right support."

"Yeah, I know."

"I don't know whether you do know. You will get through this."

Nick manages to smile. "I know."

Jeff doesn't look like he believes him. "How about Tuesday and Thursday next week? For follow-up sessions?"

"I want to go back to work. And I have to see Louis at the hospital."

"Speak to Thomas on the way out. He'll find you appointments to suit you."

Nick holds his hand out for Jeff to shake. "Thanks," he says. "Even if all I did was get snot all over your office."

"It's seen worse," Jeff says. "And I'm glad your boyfriend's getting better."

"Yeah," Nick says. "So am I."

~*~

Louis hugs him when he gets to the hospital, wrapping his arms around Nick's neck. "You okay?" he asks, mouth to Nick's ear. 

Nick closes his eyes. "I will be."

"Love you," Louis says. 

Nick kisses his cheek. "Right back at you," he says. "How are you feeling?"

"Guess who took a piss in an actual toilet?"

"Is it my very own walking-frame-Tommo?" He sits down in the visitor's chair next to Louis's big wing-backed one. 

"It was indeed," Louis says. "Only took me a million years to walk there and get these stupid pyjamas down. I should have some kind of weeing award, though."

"I'll run you something up with a bit of glitter and a Pritt Stick. You need anything?"

Louis shakes his head. "I'm all right. But I'm still worried about you."

"I'm sorry about yesterday. I cried for, like, an hour in that appointment this morning. I feel better for it, though. Think I was bottling it all up." No need to say that he's still imagining Louis hurt and almost dying all the fucking time. 

"Do you feel better now?"

Nick nods. "Going back to work in the morning and everything. Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you?" He's not sure going back is the best option, but it can't be any worse than what he's doing now. His mum will be leaving soon, and at least he doesn't have to commute to Hampshire to see Louis now, so it's probably the right time. He hopes his _I'm okay_ face is working on Louis. He definitely doesn't need to worry any more about Nick than he has to. 

Louis makes a face. "They asked me if I wanted them to shave me this morning. I kind of said no. I, um—" He stops. "I sort of wanted you to do it instead. Would you?"

"Course," Nick says, and he slides his hand into Louis's for the moment. "Tell me when you're ready, and we'll figure it out."

"I like it when it's you," Louis says, going a little pink. "When it's you looking after me."

Nick has never been the kind of person to look after anyone else. He's the one who needs looking after, babysitting, the one who gives sets of house keys to his friends because he can't bear to be alone. He's not the rock that his friends lean on. He's the one doing the leaning. 

"I like it too," he says softly, and Louis smiles. 

~*~

Nick goes back to work the following morning. Getting out of bed is a fucking ball ache, and not even his mum making him breakfast and coffee on her last morning in London is enough to get him out of the door in time to make Matt's pre-show meeting. 

He spends the journey in trying to check the newspapers on his phone for any mention of him and Louis. Luckily the front pages belong to someone from Coronation Street playing away from home, and he doesn't care about any mentions more than half way down the _Daily Mail_ sidebar of shame, so he doesn't have to play another round of avoiding any pictures of the crash at all costs. That's his least favourite game. 

Fiona's waiting for him by the lifts, coffee in hand. "Come on," she says, giving him a one-armed hug. "Matt's waiting to start the meeting."

"Surprise, surprise, I'm late," Nick says, trying to laugh and taking the coffee all the same time. "Start as I mean to go on."

"I think he might let you off, just this once," she says, as they get in the lift. "It's good to see you."

"Yeah," he says, and he finds he's telling the truth. "It's good to see you too."

Matt's waiting for him by the round table, making notes on the show schedule in a Harry Potter biro. Nick got him that for Christmas last year. 

"Hi," Matt says. "You're late."

"Only a bit," Nick says, sitting down and reaching for the schedule. "And don't tell me you didn't expect it."

Matt rolls his eyes at him. "I'm glad you're back. Now shush, and have a read through of that whilst I finish this."

"Someone put his bossy boots on this morning."

"I did indeed," Matt says. "Shut up and read."

Being back in the office feels pretty fucking good. It feels pretty flipping fantastic, if he does say so himself—pre-show nerves aside—and he's just congratulating himself on a good life choice when Matt leans over and pokes him in the arm. 

"What do you want to do about Louis?" Matt asks. "We can't really dump all the listener segments, but we could pre-warn them. Don't mention Louis, etc."

Nick looks down at his page of notes. "No," he says after a moment. "It's fine. It's not like it's a secret anymore, is it? Everyone knows."

"Nick—" Matt nudges Nick's coffee a little closer to him. "Is there anything else we can do?"

"Try and ascertain if they're a giant fucking nutcase, will you? I've had enough of people telling me to eat glass recently, without them saying it on the radio."

He's tired, is the thing, and the pre-show nerves are properly kicking in, and he hadn't meant to say that. 

"Are they really saying that?" Fiona asks. Her voice catches.

"Not really," he lies. They've always said that. They're just saying it with more frequency now, that's all. "It's fine. Let's just try and get them not to say that on the actual radio, all right?"

Fear sits heavy in his stomach, anxiety making his belly churn. He's always a bit nervous about going back on the air when he's been away on holiday, but this is different. This is worse. Everything's changed. He's changed. He wants to be back, but it doesn't stop him being scared. 

He's not sure he isn't still falling apart. 

~*~

He gets a message from Louis just before the seven o'clock news. _Sounding good Grimshaw. Guess who's just gone for a poo_

Nick rolls his eyes and sends him a message back that just says, _stop telling me this stuff, I don't give a shit_ , then, off the back of that one, _no pun intended._

 _One step closer to coming home_ , Louis messages him. _think I deserve a song played in my honour cos of that_. 

_You want a dedication?_

_Yeah I fucking do boyfriend. You going to pull one out of the bag for me?_

Nick rolls his eyes. Tina's just finishing the news, and they're supposed to be going straight into the waking up song, then Hozier, but Nick jumps in to ask Tina how's she's doing, silencing the waking up song alarm. She copes with the deviation from schedule adeptly, chatting for another minute then saying it's good to hear Nick back on the radio. 

"Good to be back, Tina," he says. "Anyway, thanks for that, and we'll talk again after the half seven news. Now, next up we've got Hozier, and as I've just had a message from a certain young man stuck in hospital demanding a shout out, he can have this one. Here's Take Me To Church. Louis, stop listening to the radio and go back to sleep. You can't come home if you don't get enough rest."

The music kicks in, and Nick takes off his headphones, sliding his hands into his hair. The text messages are going mad. So's Twitter. His phone's lighting up. 

"Nick," Matt says, from the other side of the studio. "Nick. What about the waking up song?"

"Shut up, all right," Nick says. "He wanted a shout out."

Fiona comes over and kisses the top of his head. "Good to have you back, Grimbles."

"Yeah," Nick says, as his iPad lights up with a message from Louis. "It's all good." It isn't, but just for a minute, it feels like it is. 

~*~

He takes his mum for a goodbye lunch, driving a little bit aimlessly until he finds somewhere the paparazzi aren't going to think of looking. They end up at a Thai café down a side street, twenty minutes drive from home, both of them having green curry and sticky rice with a can of Diet Coke. It's perhaps not the extravagant dinner he wanted to give her to show how much she's appreciated, but it's easy and tastes nice, and they're eating early enough that she won't get stuck in the rush hour on the motorway if they're quick about it. 

"Thanks for coming," he tells her, as they share a plate of Thai spring rolls whilst they wait for their main course. "I mean it. I'm sorry I haven't been around much."

"It's all right, love," she says. "I didn't come down to see all your fancy friends and restaurants. I came down to make sure you were all right and being looked after. But you will bring Louis up, won't you? Once he's better? Your dad will want to meet him."

"Will he?" His dad is great, but Nick is never quite sure how much of his dad wanting to meet his friends is because his mum says so, and how much of it is rooted in his actual dad. 

"Yes, Nicholas. The boy who's finally made you settle down. Of course he wants to meet him. And if you think I haven't had Janey and our Liv on the phone all the time, then you've got another think coming. Our Andrew's been on at me too. They're all interested."

"They're all nosey, you mean."

His mum smiles at him. "Bring him up for a weekend. Show him the sights."

"All Oldham has to offer," Nick says, leaning back in his seat as they bring over their main courses. "Okay, I'll ask him."

"Good," she says. "Bit of all right, this food, isn't it? Your dad'd be asking where the potatoes were."

"He's never met a potato he didn't like."

"I bet he's been eating chips every day for dinner while I've been down here."

"Maybe," Nick says. He plays with his rice a bit, pushing it round his plate. "I've never felt like this about anyone. Louis, I mean."

"Nicholas, sweetheart, you've spent every second you could at that hospital. You missed work. If you think we don't know that this time's different, you're wrong."

He looks down at his curry. "You know, like—" He stops. "I always thought I wasn't one of those people who'd settle down. Not like Andrew. Or Jane, even. I thought I wasn't built right. I'm too selfish. I like my own way too much. I want to see my friends all the time. I'm more interested in my phone than I am in going out on dates."

"You never have been able to put it down."

"When Louis was in the accident, I swore I'd never pick it up again so long as they made him okay again. I swore I'd never not be around for him."

She stops eating, and leans over to cover Nick's hand with her own. "You don't have to keep that bargain, you know. I've seen you. You've hardly picked your phone up since I've been here. All your friends messaging you and you not answering any of them. I'm not stupid, you know, Nick. I know you're hurting. I'm your mum. I know you. If you start seeing your friends again, or get surgically attached to that phone again, Louis isn't going to get sick again. You didn't save him by making rash promises."

"Didn't I? How do you know?" He's not avoiding his phone because of that. Not really, anyway. No more than any other reason. He just can't cope. 

She looks sad. "You saved him by being there every single day when he needed you," she says. "You saved him by going without sleep, and braving those awful newspaper men, and holding his hand whilst he got well enough to wake up. That's how you saved him, you and all those other people who love him. Accidents happen, love, and sometimes people die, and sometimes people get hurt. Your young man got so hurt, love. I don't know whether you'll ever be able to truly forget about these few weeks. I don't know if you'll be the same person after that you were before, but you didn't save him by hiding from the world. By hiding from your world." She smiles, and squeezes his hand. "Now, why don't you get stuck into your lunch before it goes cold, and think about texting your friends this afternoon."

Nick is so, so tired. He's so scared. Everything is still so hard. "Promise me he'll be all right," he says, a minute later. "Please, Mum. I can't do this again."

She puts her fork down. "I can't promise you that. I can't promise you that for any of us, let alone Louis. But you don't live a life by being scared of what's around the corner. You're only strong enough to survive if you battle on through. And you're a fighter as much as Louis is. That's what you've got to hold on to."

He nods, staring down at his plate. He's not hungry. He hasn't been hungry in weeks. For the sake of his mum, he tries to eat what's in front of him, but his body is still used to living on packets of mini cheddars and crap, slightly stale, overpriced sandwiches. 

"Eat up, love. I can't be up at home worrying that you're living off coconut water and vending machines. I'm not telling your dad about the coconut water at all, can you imagine his face if I tell him what you're paying?"

"You can get vitamin water now," Nick says. "It's flavoured water with added vitamins."

His mum shakes her head. "What will they think of next?" she asks. "The world's gone mad. Anything to avoid eating a vegetable."

"I've got some multi-vits in the cupboard," Nick says. "Maybe I could start taking them again."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," his mum says. "Now, Nick, come on. Give it a go. Eat some of your rice and some of your curry. We're sitting here until you've made a good go at it."

Nick might be the age that he is, but he rather thinks his mum still thinks he's about nine. 

Sometimes, he quite likes that. He doesn't wish she wasn't going home to a proper bed and people who weren't spending all their time at the hospital, but he does wish she was staying for moments like this. 

~*~

He cries after she leaves, hardly managing to get back in the flat and get the door closed after him before he starts to sob, Pig immediately racing through from the living room to see what the matter is and offer her particular brand of licky, barky support. 

He ends up curled up on the sofa with Pig in his lap, still crying even as he thumbs through his messages and sends the same one to Pixie, Emily, Collette, Gillian, Henry, and Daisy: _dispatched mum back home to the frozen north. Am all on my lonesome. Sorry I haven't been around._

Collette stays over that night, curled up in his bed with her cold feet tangled with Nick's. She brings red wine and still-warm chips, and steals Nick's t-shirt to sleep in as they sit up in bed and drink wine out of crystal glasses. 

She doesn't know who Louis is, not really, and he ends up getting his phone out to swipe through his pictures so that she can put a face to the name. 

"He's good looking," she says, and to Nick, who's not that long back from the hospital, where he spent an hour with a bad-tempered Louis whose physio had been too much like hard work, it's a welcome, blessed relief to finally be allowed to talk about all the ways he loves him with someone who only cares that Nick is happy. 

Nick had started to forget there was a whole part of him that still continued to function, regardless of whether or not he was by Louis's side. 

It's been a really, really hard few weeks. 

~*~

In the morning, he creeps out to work as quietly as he can, leaving a note for Collette propped up on the bedside table. _Thanks for being a bloody brilliant friend. Toast, coffee, whisky and cigarettes in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you want. Am going to the hospital after the show, so let yourself out. Love you C, Nick xxx_

It's the very least he could do to show his thanks. 

~*~

He sees Jeff again on Tuesday, and tells him they're thinking of discharging Louis at the end of the week. _It feels like it's too soon_ , he tells him, _what if something goes wrong?_

Jeff doesn't take any of his shit. He tells Nick the same thing Harry told him: that Nick isn't a doctor, or a nurse, and he's not qualified to make those kind of decisions. He doesn't need to be everything to Louis; there are other people around who have roles to play in his life. That Nick is Louis's boyfriend, not his consultant, and he needs to trust that the doctors are making the right decisions for Louis. 

Somewhere inside, Nick knows that, but it doesn't stop him going over and over every little thing. 

They mostly talk about how Nick keeps seeing the accident everywhere he looks, even when he's asleep, reliving the adrenaline of that moment where he'd seen the news for the first time on the BBC Twitter. 

Nick hasn't been able to admit that to anyone before. Jeff can't wish it away with a magic wand, and he doesn't try to, but it's a relief to say it out loud. 

~*~

"I think they're going to let me home," Louis says, when Nick comes in with a pack of Tunnock's Teacakes smuggled in under his jacket. 

"Hi to you too," Nick says. He leans in to kiss Louis's cheek, depositing the Tunnock's Teacakes on his lap as he tugs up a chair. "You're dressed and everything. Look at you all almost well enough to come home."

Louis is in a zip up hoodie, t-shirt, and very loose tracksuit bottoms. "I'm ready for my close-up," he says, trying to open the box of teacakes with his gammy hand. "Yeah, anyway, the doctors just came round. Like, half an hour ago? And apparently now I can make it to the toilet and everything, I can probably go home."

"What about the rest of it?" Nick asks, trying to indicate with a wave of his hand everything else that Louis's had to go through: the surgery, the damage to his internal organs, the broken ribs, the stitches and the healing wounds. He's not sure he succeeds. He lets Louis fumble with the box and doesn't offer to help. Louis is clearly sick of people doing shit for him. 

"Masses of painkillers," Louis says, getting the box open. "Oxycodone and Tramadol and something else. Other stuff. Analgesics. And piles of appointments. Fracture clinic and physios and I've got to go and get the last of the stitches out. But yeah? Like, I'm healing well. I think I'm going to come home."

He sounds so delighted that Nick has to hide his fear about not having a nurse to hand if something goes wrong. "Brilliant," Nick lies. "That's fucking brilliant."

"It is, isn't it?" Louis slides his hand into Nick's. "Will you stay at mine, like you said?" He looks a little anxious. 

"What, you think I'll have changed my mind about looking after you or something?"

Louis shrugs, avoiding his eye. "It's not exactly your thing, is it? Helping me to get dressed and round the house. Make sure I can get to the toilet. You'll have to make me food and stuff. It's crap and it's embarrassing."

"Love," Nick says, trying to be careful. "I've seen tubes come out of you. I've been kept updated on laxative watch. I've been here every day. I don't give a shit if I have to make you lunch and help you to the loo. I just want you to be better. And home."

Louis squeezes his hand. He's embarrassed, Nick can tell. He still won't quite meet Nick's eye. "I knew I made a good choice in secret boyfriend."

"Yeah, well," Nick says. "If we're talking about good choices, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who's come out in front."

Louis laughs at that. "I'm really glad it's you," he says. It's an odd kind of a thing to say, but Nick echoes it, lifting their joined hands so he can press a kiss to the back of Louis's hand. It's still covered in marks from his drips. 

They're in the past, though. He's getting better. He's finally getting better. 

~*~

Getting the house ready for Louis to come home to is more stressful and fraught than Nick might have imagined. Jay is staying too, the rest of the family dispatched back home so that it's just her and the baby twins taking up residence in the spare room furthest from Louis's, so that he won't be disturbed by them crying. Nick's chosen the room right next door to Louis's, and if it feels weird that he's going to be nearer to Louis than Jay, then neither of them mention it. 

He does a big shop in preparation, taking a trolley round with a list of Louis's favourite foods in one hand, and Jay's list of appropriate recuperating foods in the other. He's also followed round by an ever-changing group of people with their camera phones out, and people asking him if Louis is going to be all right. There's only one person who tells him that what he and Louis do is disgusting, which is great, but there are enough people who give him a once-over to suggest that at least a few more people are thinking it. It's not like he's lived a life particularly full of homophobic abuse; he's been lucky, in a way. He's friendly enough that he's never been short of friends, and that's had its own benefits: he's never endured the kind of long term bullying that leaves a lasting reminder. It's not even like it's news that he's gay; the only difference to how things were before is that he's turned a hot, young boybander with his predatory gay vibes, and he's bored of this being his fault. He's bored of the insinuations and the pictures and the legions of awful fans who pepper his Twitter replies with death threats and revolting comments and the kind of vitriolic hatred that Nick doesn't have the wherewithal to withstand at the moment. He's too tired to deal with people not liking him; his thick skin has grown thin of late, and the comments slide underneath his skin, sneaking their way into his head, and they won't go away. 

He bumps his elbow into someone else's as they're both reaching for a block of cheddar—Nick's anti-cheese stance doesn't extend as far as Louis—and when he turns to apologise, it's a middle-aged woman with purple streaks in her hair clutching a basket in one hand and her cheese in the other. 

She blushes as soon as she recognises him; Nick's sort of never going to get used to that reaction. 

"Sorry," he says. "Too busy thinking about cheese to look where I was going."

"Cheese will do that to a person," she says, dropping her cheddar into her basket. "Look, um." He braces himself, but she smiles awkwardly. "Tell Louis to get better soon, all right? If I'd had you on the radio when I was fourteen, I might have found coming out a whole lot easier than I did. Louis too."

He tries to smile. It's a moment of relief in a sea of shit comments and newspaper insinuations. "Thanks," he says. "I'll tell him."

She pats him on the elbow. "Don't forget your cheese."

"Louis's cheese," he says. "I can't have it."

"Louis's cheese," she says. "Bye, then."

It's a moment of normality in weeks of madness. There's a couple of guys at the end of the aisle, one of them holding a copy of _The Sun_ , the other taking pictures on his phone. 

Nick ducks his head and pushes the trolley in the other direction. 

~*~

Louis is waiting for him in the chair by the side of his hospital bed, dressed already in his tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt and hoodie. He looks pale and tired, but happy to see Nick, leaning in for a kiss as Nick hugs him hello. 

"Time to go home," Nick says, holding on for perhaps too long. Louis, outside of hospital. It's too much to wish for. He's still half convinced it's going to go wrong. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Louis says. "It's good to see you."

"What, did you think I'd not show up? I came every other day, didn't I?"

"You did," Louis agrees. He still looks a little worried. Coming home is a big deal for all of them, not least because this will be the first time they will be out and together, and relationships have never gone well for Nick before. 

He won't miss this place, though. He's not entirely sure he can imagine a life without dragging himself into the hospital every day. Surely there was a time before hospitals. He's not sure he can remember. 

One of the nurses pushes open the door, a big, clear bag in her hand, full of medication. "Medicines," she says, putting it down on the table in front of Louis. "Do you want me to go through them with you? It's all written down, but I can tell you as well, if you'd like."

Nick doesn't intrude, once he's checked that the list makes sense. They'll have Jay at home to help work out anything they don't understand, and anyway, he's too nervous to sit down. Instead, he's brought two empty sports bags, and he starts putting away all of the remaining bits of Louis's stuff into them, tidying up the room around them as he packs. There's so much stuff, even considering the couple of bags that Jay had brought away with her last night, and the boxes of notes and cards that the security team have been handing over for them to take with them. Nick's got four boxes in his hall at home, unopened. 

He's put the orchid he bought him by the side of Louis's bed at home, waiting for him to come home. 

He waits until the nurse has finished with Louis before going over again, ducking in to kiss the top of Louis's head. 

"How are you feeling?" Nick asks, going back to bundling toiletries and magazines and half-empty packets of biscuits into a bag. Normally he's a neat packer, but his nerves are getting the better of him, and he wants to get Louis out of here. 

"Dunno," Louis says. "Thought I'd be excited but now it's here I'm just tired. I've only walked as far as Preston's room, and that was with the walking frame." They're taking the walking frame with them. Crutches are too difficult to manage with Louis's broken arm. 

"Well, you've got your mum waiting for you at home, and she says to tell you that she's going to take over the nursing for a bit. Until you're used to getting round."

"Have you spoken to her this morning?"

"I've seen her," Nick says, doing a sweep of the bathroom for any of Louis's stuff. "I've been at yours all morning, helping to get things ready. Had a hold of the babies, you know. Went to the shop for you. I've left her looking after Pig."

Louis smiles at that. "I like that you're getting along. And buying me stuff."

"I like that too," Nick says. "Now, do you want a cup of tea whilst I take this stuff out to the car? Or some Ribena?"

"Suppose," Louis says. "Ribena."

Nick gets out the blueberry muffin and the carton of Ribena out of his bag that Jay had given him before leaving the house. There's a post-it note on the side of the Ribena— _give yourself a bit of a sugar boost before you leave, keep your strength up. Love you and see you soon xxx_

Louis blinks a bit, and Nick rubs his shoulder. 

"Soon have you home," he says. "Go on, have a bit of that whilst I take these out to the car. I won't be long."

He pops in to see Preston in his room before leaving. He's ready to go too, sports bag zipped up and ready on the bed. He's going to tail Nick home, make sure they get Louis inside his house and set up without any problems. The fact that Louis needs security just to get out of hospital and home is sad in itself, but nothing about it surprises Nick anymore. He's had a taste of the level of intrusion Louis and his band must suffer every day it the past few weeks, and it hasn't been the fun sort of celebrity that Nick normally enjoys. 

"All ready to go?" Preston asks. 

"This is the last load," Nick says. "Is he all checked out and everything? Is that what you say? Checked out? Sounds like a hotel."

"Discharged," Preston says. "I think so. I've got meetings this afternoon, and I know you'll have them too—"

"Tomorrow," Nick says. "They're coming over tomorrow."

Preston makes a face that looks like a grimace. "At least they're giving him some time to settle in."

"Not enough," Nick says. He knows that there's a whole team of people out there to support Louis, record company and management company and more besides, but Nick can't help but think that there's enough people being paid trying to manage Louis's accident to pay for a small island retreat in the Bahamas. Nick's had it up to here with it; his publicist has had to take on extra staff, and there's a possibility she's been getting less sleep than Nick has. Luckily she thrives on it, unlike Nick, who is still about five seconds from falling over. "Luckily his mum's a Rottweiler when it comes to looking out for him."

Preston laughs. "Like you're not," he says. "Go on. Get that stuff out to the car. I'll buzz down and get one of the team to walk you out, make sure there's no trouble."

Nick lets out a breath. He won't miss this. He won't miss any of it. 

~*~

Louis is stiff and tired and pale by the time they get home. It takes Nick opening the door and helping him to twist out of the car to get him to his feet, and then Nick sliding his arm around his waist to help him stay standing. Preston's parked his car behind Nick's, and he's got the walking frame ready and waiting. 

"I'm fine," Louis says, but he's not. He's clearly exhausted already. 

"Let's get you inside," Preston says, taking the brunt of it. Outside the gates, there are girls taking pictures with their phones, and a couple of paparazzi with huge lenses. There are some of Louis's security team down at the gates, trying to wave people on. There are way too many cars in the drive for Nick's liking; all of these people in Louis's home. 

Louis isn't even going to get a few seconds alone. Nick hates everything. 

"Nick—" Louis says, because it might only be a few steps to the door but Louis's struggling. 

"Almost there, babe," Nick says. "Then we'll get you upstairs and you can have a nap." It's what Jay had said he'd want to do. He's not sure Jay's wrong. 

"Everyone's looking."

"Let them," Nick says, one hand to Louis's back. "You're doing really well."

"Fuck off," Louis says, but there's no bite to it. He's pale and drained and Nick thinks they've sent him home too soon. He can't bear the idea of him having to go back into hospital. 

Once they get inside, Preston closes the door behind them. Louis is staring up the stairs in trepidation. He looks exhausted just thinking about it. From the dining room comes the sound of voices, and Nick just wants everyone to fuck off and leave Louis alone, just let him come home quietly. Pig comes skittering out of the kitchen into the hall. She barks, but when Nick tells her to sit, she does. Good dog. 

"I can't get up there," Louis says, sparing a glance for Pig, but staring up at the stairs. "It's too far."

Preston touches his shoulder. "I'll carry you."

"It's going to hurt," Louis says. He's so pale and shaky. 

"But bed at the other end," Nick says, trying to sound cheerful. "And your mum, look." 

Jay is standing at the top of the stairs with one of the babies perched on her hip. "Hello, love," she says, and Louis's face crumples. 

"It hurts, Mum," he says. 

"I know, love," she says. "But we'll soon have you settled."

"Come on," Preston says, and then he's very, very carefully lifting Louis up, and carrying him up the stairs. 

Nick feels useless. He carries the walking frame up behind them, trying not to see how hard Louis is gritting his teeth in obvious discomfort. 

He'd thought getting Louis home was the end, but it feels like it's only the beginning. 

~*~

It takes over forty eight hours for Louis to start to lose the grey-ish pallor he's been wearing since his discharge from hospital. He's quiet and tired and he hasn't made it downstairs yet—until he can manage without the walking frame there isn't a way he can get down the stairs, and although he can make it out of bed and to the chair by the window, he still struggles getting to the bathroom without the support of the walking frame. The physios came over yesterday—their first daily visit, and it's only going to get worse from here. 

The first night he'd been home, he'd refused to sleep unless Nick was in his bedroom with him, but as there was no way that Nick was risking hurting him for a single moment, he'd ended up dragging a single mattresses from one of the spare bedrooms into Louis's room, and setting it up by the side of Louis's bed. Nick had slept badly and Louis had woken up three or four times, in pain and needing his medication, but at least he hadn't been alone. 

It's fine at the weekends, but as Nick refuses to wake Louis up at quarter past five in the morning when Nick's alarm goes off, on Sunday night he goes to sleep in the room next to Louis's instead, leaving Louis grumpy and bad-tempered behind him. 

When he gets back from work at lunchtime, though, Louis is looking better, and less grey. He's playing snakes and ladders with Liam, and drinking tea, and greets Nick with a kiss. Pig's curled up by Liam's feet.

"How's things?" Nick asks, letting Liam hug him hello. "You need anything?"

"Physio was shit," Louis says. He throws a six, gets an extra turn, and then ends up on a snake that takes him right back down to the bottom of the board. Nick tries to hide his grin. Liam coughs. Louis frowns at them both. "Who does physio at nine in the morning?"

"You do," Nick says. "I got fish fingers, like you wanted. Are you sure this is what you want for lunch?"

"Fish finger sandwiches? Yes." Louis makes a face. "Is there enough for Liam?"

"There is, because I'm not eating them," Nick says, wrinkling his nose. "And anyway, I got two boxes, in case your mum was as weird as you are."

"Oi," Jay says, from the doorway. She's got a baby on each hip. Nick goes to scoop Doris up into his arms, kissing the top of her head. Ernie snuggles into his mum's side. "How am I weird?"

"Fish finger sandwiches," Nick says. "I'm making them for Louis. And Liam, apparently. I've got ham, though."

"I'll have ham," Jay says. "I'll come and help you make them, though."

It's weird, him and Jay and Louis and the babies all living together. It'll be weirder when Jay goes home, which he rather suspects will be sooner rather than later. She's got a family to look after, and her girls are on the phone all the time. They need their mum too. 

And Louis has Nick. 

The responsibility is a lot to bear. 

"How's he been?" Nick asks, putting on the kettle for tea. All he does is make tea. Pig bounds down the stairs and noses at Nick's jeans; Jay puts Ernie down at her feet, stuffed elephant in hand, and he and Pig stare at each other for a long moment until Ernie starts to laugh, and Doris clamours to be let down too. 

"Physio's difficult for him," she says, giving Doris something to play with. Pig settles down with her nose against her paws, doing important watching things. "He'll have to change the time of his sessions once I'm gone. There won't be anyone to let them in until he's happy going up and down stairs."

"When will that be?"

"Don't know," she says. "It's the frame that's the problem. Or his broken arm, one of the two. If he was on crutches he might be able to make it now. Maybe we could make him up a bedroom downstairs for a bit, then he'll have the run of downstairs to go at. He might even get outside. It's cold, but he needs a bit of fresh air."

"That might be a good plan," Nick says. "When do you think you're going to go?"

She smiles. "Tomorrow, I thought."

"We'll miss you," Nick says, and he means it. They couldn't have done these past few days without Jay, getting Louis settled and comfortable at home. Dealing with the label and the management company, all of whom are trying to do their jobs when all Louis needs is a break from it all to get better. The media doesn't stop, though. The articles keep coming. _**Grimmy moves in**_ and all the made up bullshit that comes with it, the imaginary fights between the family and the casual intimation that Louis wouldn't be gay at all if Nick hadn't made him be. 

"I don't need to tell you to look after him," Jay says, getting mugs out of the cupboard. "I already know you do. Just, like..." She stops. "I'm leaving him and he's not better yet. And I'll worry."

He knows that. He worries enough for all of them. He's still seeing Jeff. The trauma of the Intensive Care Unit still seems fairly up close and immediate, but at least the adrenaline spikes aren't quite as ruinous as they were last week. 

"He's on the mend," Nick says instead. "Maybe Liam will come over in the mornings, or one of his other friends. They could let the physios in, keep him company. But, like, maybe making up a bed downstairs isn't a bad idea. Get him more mobile, quicker."

"We should have thought of that a few days ago," Jay says, with a roll of her eyes. Nick adds water to the teabags and wipes down the kitchen counter, for no other reason than it needs doing. "You should think about seeing your friends too. I know you haven't been."

"No time. Or energy." Nick relents. "I know, all right. It's not doing me any favours either, only thinking about how hurt he was."

She smiles at him. It's sad at the edges. "He told me, you know. About how hard it was for you. I'm sorry I wasn't more supportive."

"It was hard for everyone. And we only had one focus, and it was him. It's all right."

They stay there, in the kitchen, with the babies by their feet, Pig looking after them all, and wait for the tea to brew. 

~*~

"I want to go on the radio," Louis says on Thursday night. The house is quiet, and it's just the two of them in Louis's living room, Louis in his most solid arm chair and Nick sprawled across the sofa with Pig in his lap. They'd turned the dining room into a bedroom for Louis, and over the last couple of days, Nick's come home from work to find him doing circuits of the downstairs, slow and tired, but getting there. He can make his own cups of tea, and get himself snacks, and look out of the window into the garden. 

"Like, as a DJ?" Nick asks, pausing the DVD. They're watching old episodes of Red Dwarf, and Nick's twatting about on his iPad, flicking through Twitter and trying to avoid vanity searching his own name on Tumblr. That way only _eat glass_ comments await. 

"Nah, idiot. Like, on your show. You could interview me."

Nick puts his iPad down. "Come into the studio?"

"I thought we could do it over the phone," Louis says. 

Nick doesn't say no immediately. It's what Jeff's been telling him: Louis is an adult who can make his own decisions. Nick can't protect him by wrapping him up in a bubble and saving him from the world. 

"Well," Louis prompts. "What do you think?"

"What do you want to get out of it?"

Louis shrugs. "I'm sick of everyone talking about me. That's all they've been doing for weeks. Talking about me. Talking for me. This huge fucking thing happened to me and I haven't got to say anything about it. It's my story. It doesn't belong to anyone else." He frowns. "You think it's a terrible idea."

"I don't. I mean. I know that everything that's happened is just, like, one thing after another where you haven't had any control over your life."

"That's it exactly." He looks enthusiastic, and Nick hasn't seen that in a while. "I was talking to Harry earlier about it, and how, like, fucking sick of it all I am. It was my accident and you're my boyfriend, and they're telling stories about it all like they _know_. And they don't."

Nick desperately wants to say no. He wants to keep Louis safe, and letting him come on the show and talk about everything that's happened is the exact opposite of that. And Louis hasn't ever been one for talking in public much when he doesn't have to. Maybe the accident's changed them all. "When do you want to do it?" he asks instead. 

Louis smiles. "Tomorrow," he says. "And no, I'm not telling my publicist first. I want what I say to be me, not what they want me to say."

"This could be a terrible idea. And you'll get into trouble. We both will."

"I know," Louis says. "I still want to do it. Say yes."

Nick lets out a breath. He wants to say no. He wants to say no so very much indeed. "All right," he says. "You're on."

~*~

> Nick woke up to Louis putting a tray down on the bed, and reaching past Nick for the lamp. 
> 
> "Grghh," Nick managed, which he hoped sounded a lot like _good morning_. 
> 
> "Hello to you too," Louis said. "I made us breakfast."
> 
> Louis was completely stark-bollock naked by the side of the bed, his dick nestled in between his thighs. He turned Nick on even when he was soft. He had a pretty dick. 
> 
> "Naked breakfast," Nick said, propping himself up on his elbows. "It's the middle of the night, and it's Sunday."
> 
> "It's eight o'clock," Louis said. "And if you want to have sex before I leave, we've got to start early."
> 
> "You are a dreadful, dreadful pest. Don't go to Hertfordshire. I don't even know where that is."
> 
> "It's Hampshire, not Hertfordshire," Louis said. "And I don't know where it is either. I don't need to, though, because I've got sat nav." He pulled back the covers, exposing Nick in all his nakedness. His dick was standing half to attention, which was absolutely understandable because it was first thing in the morning, and dicks did that kind of thing around that time. "Oh, hello." He poked Nick's dick with a finger. 
> 
> Nick squeaked. 
> 
> "You're right," Louis said, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed and shoving the duvet down to the bottom of the bed. "It's breakfast time, not sex time."
> 
> He'd made plates of toast and jam, and Nick knew from looking that he'd have to wash the sheets after they'd done. Louis wouldn't know moderation if it turned up and smacked him round the head, and the toast was lathered in Nick's very expensive jam. Louis was already leaving sticky strawberry jam fingerprints on the pillowcases. 
> 
> Still, the sheets needed a wash. 
> 
> "You are the weirdest person I've ever gone out with," Nick told him, sitting up and joining him in going cross-legged on the bed. He bumped his toes into Louis's. 
> 
> Louis beamed at him, still masticating. He wiggled his toes. "So are you," he said, swallowing. "Why do you have such knobbly knees?"
> 
> "My knees are perfectly normal," Nick said. "You're the one with weird feet. Most people have the first couple of toes the same length, but not you. Short-toed freak."
> 
> "My feet are lovely," Louis said. "You're just jealous your feet are all knobbly and aren't as perfect as mine."
> 
> "Yours smell."
> 
> "Not right now they don't," Louis said. "Hurry up and eat faster if you want to have actual sex before I have to leave."
> 
> Nick didn't respond well to being told what to do, but if it was a toss-up between having sex with Louis and, well, not having sex with Louis, he was going to go with the first option. 
> 
> He finished his toast in record time, and then went to brush his teeth. Coming back into the bedroom, he found Louis sprawled on the sheets, hand wrapped lazily around his dick. 
> 
> "Getting started without me?" Nick asked, leaning against the bathroom door. 
> 
> "Just doing a bit of pre-match prep," Louis said. "Get over here and put your mouth on me."
> 
> "Sexy," Nick said, but it didn't stop him going over and crawling up the bed to kiss Louis good morning. 
> 
> "I didn't mean there," Louis said, a minute later. 
> 
> Nick cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, really," he said, and he shifted on the sheets so that he could duck down and eyeball Louis's dick. "So you want me to blow you, do you?"
> 
> "Oh yes," Louis said. "And make sure it's good, I've got a long day of driving in my terribly sexy new car. Imagine me behind the wheel. Imagine going down on me in the front seat."
> 
> "There's too much of me to fit," Nick pointed out. "I'd have to stick my feet out the window or something."
> 
> Louis snorted. "I don't know why I'm with you," he said. "Suck me off, dickhead."
> 
> It sounded a bit like _I love you_. Louis's eyes were bright. It looked a little bit like _I love you_ , too. It did the oddest things to Nick's insides. It felt like butterflies. He laughed and darted his tongue out, catching the little blurt of pre-come on Louis's slit. You could say _I love you_ in the oddest of ways. Nick had never considered ever wanting to say it to Louis Tomlinson, but then Nick hadn't exactly been the brightest spark up until now. 
> 
> Louis slid his hands into Nick's hair, and Nick took Louis's dick in his mouth, and sucked him until he came. 
> 
> Afterwards, Nick sat back down on his heels and wrapped his fist around his dick. 
> 
> "No," Louis said, flushed red and breathless. "Up here. I want it on my face."
> 
> "Well, aren't you filthy," Nick said, but there wasn't any heat in it. He shifted so that he was kneeling up over Louis's chest, Louis's hands stroking at his thighs, his bum, the small of his back, reaching up to pinch his nipples, and wanked himself off. "This what you want?"
> 
> Louis nodded, licking his lips. "Kiss me first, though."
> 
> "I'll taste like you."
> 
> "I know," Louis said, tugging him down, and when Nick kissed him, Louis licked into his mouth, wanting it all, and Nick let him take it. 
> 
> He kissed him until his back started to complain, until he had to straighten up, still fisting his dick. 
> 
> "Old man," Louis said, smirking, and Nick just rolled his eyes. 
> 
> "Do you want me to come on your face, or what?"
> 
> "All over me," Louis said, biting on his lip. "Make a mess."
> 
> _I love you_ , Nick thought.
> 
> When he started to come, Louis opened his mouth and Nick striped his face with his come, watching Louis's throat work as he swallowed, watching as Louis smeared his hand across his cheek to mess it up. 
> 
> Nick sank down onto the sheets next to Louis, and cupped his face in his hands. "Aren't you filthy," he said, a little breathless. 
> 
> "Shut up and kiss me," Louis said, still pink cheeked. 
> 
> Nick laughed, and kissed him. "Don't go to Hertfordshire. Stay in bed with me."
> 
> "It's Hampshire, and I have to."
> 
> "I'll suck you all morning. I'll skip going out for lunch and just stay in bed with you."
> 
> "I've still got to go," Louis said, but at least he sounded regretful about it, which Nick appreciated. "What are you doing tonight?" 
> 
> Nick shrugged. There had been talk about going to some art gallery with Pixie this afternoon, and that would probably turn into something in the evening. He didn't get to see Louis as often as he liked, though. "What do you have in mind?"
> 
> "Dinner and sex?" Louis suggested, kissing the corner of Nick's mouth. "I could pick something up on my way back."
> 
> "You make the kind of offers I can't say no to."
> 
> Louis laughed at that. "If I bring us something back for tea, can you do me a favour?"
> 
> Nick rolled his eyes. He slid his hands into the small of Louis's back, tugging him closer. He loved the way he fitted together so easily with Louis. "What?"
> 
> "Save me going back to mine," Louis said. "Can you bung some of my stuff in with yours when you put a load on? I've got no clean pants or t-shirts here. There's dirty stuff, though."
> 
> "Fine," Nick said. "But you'd better blow me tonight."
> 
> "I'll do better than that," Louis said, sliding his hand down into the small of Nick's back, and then down further until he was stroking his fingers over Nick's hole. He kissed Nick again. "I'll rim you until you're begging for it."
> 
> "That'll take about four seconds, then," Nick said, who was positively easy when it came to being eaten out. 
> 
> Louis poked him in the side. "I've got to go," he said. "I'm already late. Said I'd be there for half nine."
> 
> "Don't go," Nick said, trying fruitlessly to keep a hold on Louis as he rolled over and headed for the bathroom. 
> 
> Louis shot him a look over his shoulder. "I'm coming back," he said. "And I'll make waiting for it worthwhile."
> 
> Nick flopped back down onto the sheets. "You'd better," he said, as Louis turned the shower on. _I love you_ , he thought, listening to Louis getting in the shower, and starting to sing. _I love you_.  
> 

~*~

 _Are you sure you want to do this?_ Nick texts, at five past seven. 

_Yep,_ Louis texts back. _And before you ask I am eating my breakfast. Bits of it anyway._

 _Eat more_ , Nick texts, and then Bastille finishes and he turns up the mic. "And that was Bastille, with Flaws. How good is that still sounding, by the way? So good. So coming up later this morning, we've got the first play of Cheryl off of X Factor's new single—what is her new surname, anyway? Better write that down for me, Finchy, before I announce her new song—but before that, we've got a special guest on the phone. We'll be talking to Louis Tomlinson, freshly sprung from hospital, on the phone at about five past eight. So one hour from now, people, we'll be asking Louis how's he doing. What are you looking at me like that for, Finchy?" Nick's phone is already lighting up. He suspects that as soon as the next song starts, he's going to have to field calls from his publicist, and probably Louis's. They're supposed to pass these kinds of things by them, instead of decide them between themselves. Thing is, though, Louis has had all his decisions made for him, for weeks, and this one is all his own. Nick's going to let him make this one, potential fallout aside. 

"Nothing," Finchy says. "Just, you know, thought you might already know how Louis's doing?"

"Quiet," Nick says. "I might know exactly that, but now we're going to hear about it from the horse's mouth. Not that I think he's a horse. Sorry, Louis. You're definitely not horse-like."

"Someone's going to be in trouble," Fiona says. They're enjoying this far too much. 

"Shut up," Nick says, covering his face with his hands. "Sorry, Louis. Eat your breakfast. I don't think you're a horse."

His phone lights up with a message. _Youre in trouble mister_. 

Nick just grins, unable to help himself. His boyfriend, who he can talk about on the radio, even if it means their respective publicists are blowing up their phones. His boyfriend, who isn't lying in a hospital bed, but in bed at home. 

His boyfriend, who's getting better. 

He ignores his phone for the next half hour, apart from checking in with Louis at regular intervals, trying to ask _do you still want to do this_ without saying _do you still want to do this_. It had been Louis's idea, a way of leading the story, of giving what he wants to give without anyone else spinning it. Nick's always appreciated the spoken word over any other medium anyway, and Louis deserves to own some part of his life, even after everything that's happened.

 _Don't worry,_ Louis messages him. _Nervous but ok. I want to do this. Promise_. 

It's all Nick needs. 

The eight o'clock news rolls around far too quickly, and Nick's heart thumps in his chest as he puts the call through to Louis. 

"You all right?" he asks. 

"Am I on the radio yet?" Louis asks. His voice is still slow and a little thicker than usual, the medication still dulling him a bit. 

"Not yet. We've just gone to the news."

"Well, I feel shit," Louis says. "But I still want to do this."

"Okay," Nick says. He's terrified for Louis, but he tries to keep it hidden inside. The six months they were together before Louis's accident had taught him a lot about Louis, but the past few weeks have taught him a lot more. His tenacious, desperate need to control at least part of his life; his understanding that his privacy can't come hand in hand with being as famous as he is; his need to own at least some of his life, and give it out to his fans in exactly the way he chooses. "If you need a break, or you don't feel well, you just tell me, all right? We can go to a record and come back to you."

"All right," Louis says. He pauses. "Thanks."

Matt and Fiona are making signs to him. The news is about to be done. He nods. "We're almost ready for you," Nick tells him. 

"Right. I love you."

Nick doesn't care that his colleagues are listening. "Love you too," he says. "It'll be fine."

And then Tina's finishing, and he's blustering on in to say thanks to her and ask what her plans are for the rest of the day, all the time knowing that Louis is on the line, waiting for him. 

She doesn't try to keep a hold on him, which he likes. "Thanks, Tina," he says. "And we'll speak to you again at half eight. And now we're going to speak to a very special guest on the phone. I've already spoken to him, checked he's feeling all right to chat to us, and he's promised me he does, so without further ado, let's say a very, very good morning to Louis Tomlinson. Hello, Louis Tomlinson."

"Hello, Nick Grimshaw," Louis says. Nick can't help but smile, even though he knows Louis is all right, because he left him a couple of hours ago, sleepy and in pain, but at home and getting better. 

"Hiya, love," Nick says, almost forgetting he's live on the radio. "How are you feeling?"

"All right, I think," Louis says. "Ate my breakfast and everything."

"Meal of champions. Can't get better if you don't eat breakfast."

"Says you," Louis says. "You're rubbish at remembering to eat breakfast."

"We're not talking about me. Anyway, I'm not the one who's just come out of hospital."

"Like I could forget." There's a pause, and a breath, and Nick wishes Louis wasn't constantly in pain. His stupid ribs. The listeners probably aren't used to the slow way Louis is talking, or the occasional slight slur from all the medication. 

"So, tell us where you are now, then," Nick says, "and how you're doing."

"I'm under a blanket because it's cold," Louis says. "And I'm in my living room at home."

"And how are you doing?"

"Better. Like, I'm still pretty broken, but I'm doing better. The worst bit is how many different bits of me got hurt in the accident, so it's not learning to walk again that's the problem, but everything else, like my broken ribs and where they had to operate on me after the accident, which makes it difficult to stand up."

"Do you remember the accident?" Nick already knows the answer to this question, but the answer isn't for him. It's for the listeners, and Louis's fans. 

"No," Louis says slowly. "I don't even remember owning that car, but I'd had it for about a week before the accident. I don't remember anything about being in Intensive Care, even though I was in there for days and days. I remember bits about being in the High Dependency Unit, but then I got poorly in the middle again so I don't remember much of that, either."

"Pesky pneumonia," Nick says, even though he's not sure he's ever going to be ready to make real jokes about Louis's stay in hospital. 

"Pesky pneumonia," Louis agrees. "Can I say thank you to some people?"

"Course you can," Nick says. "The airwaves are yours."

"Thank you," Louis says. "First of all, I want to say thank you to all the staff in the St Andrew's Unit in Enfield, for looking after me so well over the past couple of weeks, and getting me to the point where first of all I could sit up, and then get out of bed, and then finally letting me come home, even it means I have to use a walking frame to get around." Nick realises that Louis is reading this out, which means he has to have prepared it, and he hadn't prepared it with Nick. He swallows. "You looked after me so well, so thank you. And next I want to say thank you to all the staff in the High Dependency Unit, who got me through pneumonia, and surgery to pin my legs, and who nursed me to a point where I was aware enough to know what was going on, and how badly I was hurt, but who always tried to make sure I wasn't in pain."

"Louis—"

"And next to the staff in the Intensive Care Unit. I don't know who you are, or what you did, because I don't have any recollection of being in there at all. And I know I was in there for days and days. I was in a coma for most of it, and a ventilator for almost all of it, but I do know that when I went in there, there was a good chance I wouldn't be leaving alive, and I—I did, so thank you. Thank you to the surgeons who operated on me for eight hours after the accident, and to the emergency services, who cut me out of my car and who brought me back when my heart stopped in the ambulance. 

"I want to say thank you to my family and my friends too," he goes on, and Nick's heart hurts with how much he wishes Louis wasn't saying thank you right now, how much he wishes there wasn't a need to. How fragile Louis is, even now. "For being there so much, and looking out for me, and visiting me endlessly in hospital even though most of the time I was barely able to say hi, let alone be an entertaining person to visit. But mostly, thanks to my mum for everything that she's done, and how much she's looked after me, and also, lastly—" Nick knows what's coming. God. "Thanks to you, Nick. You've been at the hospital every single day since the accident, and it's been weeks."

"It's not a big deal." He tries to brush it away. 

"It is," Louis says. "I know you didn't go home practically the whole time I was in Intensive Care. You've been there every single day since, and I don't think I could have got through it if you hadn't been."

There's a very good chance Nick is going to cry, live on national radio. "My notes for this conversation didn't include this," Nick says, trying to change the subject. He knows he doesn't sound completely in control. "They basically say, ask how you are, talk about how you're doing, tell that funny story about how I can never buy you the right snacks and you always complain, and get you back on next week for an update."

"I couldn't have got through it without you," Louis says again. "And you had to deal with the fact that I might die, and then all the sh—" He stops. "They found out about you and me being together and you had to deal with that by yourself too."

"Louis." Nick is literally one and a half seconds from breaking down. "Don't." He tries to collect himself. "That story about snacks is going to sound rubbish now."

"You can still get me back for updates next week," Louis offers, and he doesn't quite sound in control of himself either. The media are going to cut up this interview and use whatever quotes they want for a stack of articles about the two of them, and Nick sort of hates that, but at the same time, they'll be using Louis's words to talk about Louis's life, and it's been weeks of conjecture and the two of them being outed and neither of them being able to make a statement. It's going to be rubbish, but at least now when they're talked about, it'll have their truth as a basis. 

"Okay," Nick says. "Why don't you tell everyone how you're walking like a nanna." He can't look up and see Fiona and Matt and the others looking at him. Louis thanking him on national radio, god. 

"I've got a walking frame," Louis says. "I broke both my legs and one of my arms, and I had all these internal injuries that mean it's hard to stand up because they had to operate on my core, and I broke my ribs, so I've only been out of bed at all about a week."

"You and that walking frame, it's properly funny," Nick lies. "My dog loves it."

"She does," Louis agrees. "I think she might love me more than she loves you, too."

"Stop telling the nation such terrible lies," Nick says. 

"Whose lap is she sitting in right now?"

"Well, it better hadn't be yours," Nick says. "You've just had a hundred massive surgeries and you're still recovering."

Louis groans. "She's fine."

"Tell her to move. She'll love you just as much from sitting down next to you on the sofa."

"You won't let her sit on my sofa."

"Like you don't ignore that the moment I leave the house. Anyway, it's only because I don't want her ruining your furniture."

"I don't care if she ruins my furniture, Nick."

Nick realises with a start that the two of them are bickering over furniture on national radio. "Um," he manages. "So."

"So," Louis says. Nick can tell he's grinning, the bastard. Having a domestic on the radio over a dog. 

"Tell the dog to move."

"I have done, it's all right."

"Good," Nick says, rather fruitlessly. "It's good you're feeling better."

"Isn't it, though?" He does sound tired, though. 

"We've got a million messages from listeners for you, and some questions as well, but you sound like you could do with a nap."

"Only a little one." His voice is a little thick. 

"We'll save up the questions for when you're on next time, then." He knows as well as Louis does that they're both going to be very firmly persuaded out of a next time. 

"Same time next week, then," Louis says, and Nick lets out a breath. 

"Yeah. Five past eight next Friday. I'm pretty sure Finchy will move some stuff around so that can happen." He glances over towards Matt in the corner, who looks a mix of exasperated and happy. Nick grins at him, and he nods back. 

"Timeslot's all yours, Louis," Matt says. 

"Good, thanks," Louis says. 

"Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Louis Tomlinson. Hope you're feeling better. And move that daft dog out of your lap."

"She's next to me," Louis says. 

"She is not," Nick says, who is perfectly aware of how much effort it requires to move Pig on. 

"Fine, she isn't, but she's good where she is. She's not on the broken bits."

Nick tries to laugh. "Feel better, babe."

"Will do," Louis says, and he's hanging up even as Nick's saying _bye bye bye_ and the Calvin Harris record is starting. 

Fiona comes over and hugs him as soon as the mic's turned off. She looks like she might be crying.

"What's this for?" 

"Shut up and hug me back."

He does. 

~*~

Ten minutes later, when the Tweets and messages and texts are still pouring in, his phone buzzes with a message from Louis. 

_Check twitter_ , it says. _Love you xx_

Louis's Twitter has a new tweet. _It's not Thursday but have a throwback anyway._ The link is a picture of the two of them, sprawled out on Nick's bed fully clothed, Louis holding up his phone over them both, laughing as Pig tried to get into frame, Nick's cheek pillowed on Louis's shoulder. They hadn't even been going out properly when they'd taken that. It feels like forever ago. 

"Well," Matt says, from across the studio. "That's what the two of you look like together."

"Yeah," Nick says, texting Louis, _tell my dog to get down. Idiot._ He signs it off with a string of ten happy emojis though, so he suspects Louis will be able to read the hidden _I love you_. "It is."

~*~

Louis is in bed when Nick gets home at lunchtime, and Nick creeps in to the dining room/bedroom to see if Louis is actually asleep or not. 

"I'm awake," Louis says sleepily. "How'd the rest of the show go?"

"Eventful," Nick says, kicking off his shoes and dumping his bag on the floor by the door. "First of all we had some boybander declaring his love for me in front of everyone—totally embarrassing, by the way—then Jared Leto came on, and _he_ wanted to date me too, and then I was, like, who do I pick? Movie star or pop star? Then Emma Watson came on, and she asked me out too, and I thought, fuck it, it's time to go straight."

"I can take Jared Leto," Louis says, shifting a little. Pig is curled up next to him on the bed, even though she knows full well she's not allowed on beds. Nick's boyfriend is a menace. 

"Not Emma Watson?"

"She's Hermione Granger," Louis says. "I've lost to a worthy opponent."

Nick grins, and sinks down into the seat by Louis's bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Dunno," Louis says. "Stressed out. I've turned my phone off."

"Lou—"

"I don't regret it, if that's what you think. I don't know. I just think I'd feel better if my boyfriend would get into bed with me."

"You're recovering."

"Get into bed."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," Louis says. "I'm not asking you to fuck me. Just come and lie here next to me."

Nick waits a minute before nodding. "All right," he says finally. He peels off his jeans and his hoodie until he's just in his socks and his underwear and his t-shirt. He has to dislodge Pig first, but then he crawls under the covers so that he's lying next to Louis. 

Louis turns his head to face him. He's still stuck sleeping on his back, and movement doesn't come easily. Nick shifts a little closer, until he can wrap an arm around Louis's shoulders, and kiss his jaw. 

"You did a very brave thing today," Nick says. "Don't think I don't know that. But did you have to thank me in front of everyone?"

Louis tries to smile at that. He reaches out with his broken arm, and strokes his fingers over Nick's forehead. "Yes," he says softly. "I did."

"Louis—"

"Don't go home," Louis says. 

"What?"

"I've had you every day for weeks. I don't want to go back to anything less. I love you. Move in with me."

"Get a boy into bed and then offer him the world," Nick grumbles, but his heart is pounding. 

"Think about it," Louis says. "Grab life with both hands. Don't miss out on anything just because you're waiting. You never know what's round the corner."

"Do you mean it?"

Louis nods. "As much as I meant everything I said this morning. Thank you, by the way. For looking after me. For making it less fucking terrifying every day."

"Any time," Nick says. He kisses Louis's shoulder. "My mum and dad want you to come up to Oldham. See the sights."

"I remember," Louis says. "I'll go to Oldham if you come to Doncaster."

"Deal." It's not like he hasn't been thinking about putting his flat on the market for ages. He needs something with at least another bedroom, and where you can get into the bathroom without having to go through his room. "We'll fight all the time, by the way. You're a messy fuck."

"We'll get a cleaner. I don't care. I'll be tidier and you can be messier. We'll compromise."

"You really want this."

Louis shrugs. "Yeah," he says. "But it's okay if it's too soon."

"It's kind of soon," Nick says. "I don't know if that's a bad thing or not."

Louis doesn't say anything to that, and Nick tucks his face into Louis's shoulder. "I love you," he says into Louis's t-shirt. "And I want to see you every day too."

"Well, then," Louis says. "Stay."

Lives can change in the flick of a switch, in the blink of an eye, in the shift from morning to afternoon. "Is Pig invited too?"

Louis laughs. "Nick, she's the reason I'm asking. You're the extra bit that comes with her."

Nick curls into Louis's side, as close as he can without hurting him. "All right," he says softly. "You're on."

Louis doesn't say anything to that. He slides his hand into Nick's instead, and squeezes. 

"You all right?" Nick asks. 

Louis's eyes are warm. "I will be."

"Yeah," Nick says, leaning in to press his mouth to Louis's. "You really will." 

~*~

**Epilogue**

Louis's first show back with the band comes eight months later, and it's the tour opener at the O2 in Greenwich. 

Louis has been an absolute nightmare all day, terrified and spiky and bad tempered and mean, but Nick knows him too well. Just before the show's supposed to start, he gathers him up into a hug, pressing him back against the wall so that Louis can feel the solid weight of the building behind him, and Nick against his front. 

"What if I can't do it?" he asks, so quiet that no one else could possibly hear. 

Nick smooths his thumbs over the pale scar under Louis's eye, then the other one up by his hairline. "You do exactly what you can," he says. "And don't forget for a second that the others are all up there with you. And you can do it. I know you can."

Louis's hands are shaking. "I'm so scared. I'm fucking bricking it."

"I know," Nick says. He runs his knuckle down the centre of Louis's t-shirt, following where he knows the line of his scar is. "I know. But you're better, and you can do this." 

He's not entirely better. There are scars on his calves from the pinning surgery, and ones on his thighs and pelvis from his operation after the accident. There's a neat line down the back of his right wrist from that break, too, and the scars on his stomach from his internal injuries. It's taken him months, but he's got here, back where he wants to be, on tour with his band. 

"What if I can't?" Louis says. "What if it's too soon?" 

"You're being an idiot," Nick says. "You're brilliant, and I love you, and here, I brought you a Tunnock's Teacake as a pre-show treat."

"Did you sit on this?"

"A little bit," Nick says, which is sort of an understatement. It's not so much a marshmallow and chocolate dome on top of a chocolate covered biscuit as it is a flat sort of squidgy thing wrapped in foil. "It's the thought that counts, right?"

"You sat on it," Louis says, but he starts to unwrap it anyway. "God, why are you so awful with junk food."

"Dunno," Nick says. "I should go in a minute. Go and find my seat."

Louis shakes his head. "No," he says. "You can't. It's the first time back. I want you here."

"You're terribly demanding," Nick says, but he doesn't mind. This is the culmination of months and months of hard work and pain, and it's not surprising Louis is terrified. Nick's scared too. 

"You could watch sidestage," Louis says, picking bits of foil out of his teacake and then taking a bite. "Cheer me on."

"I'd be doing that anyway," Nick says. "Wherever I was sitting."

"I want you here," Louis says obstinately, and Nick knows he's only being objectionable because he's so desperately scared. 

"Okay," Nick says. "Do you want to come on the radio in the morning? Give us a post-show rundown? Tell everyone you're back in the game?" Louis's been taking more control in the past few months; he still hates losing his privacy, but he's had more say in what's out there about him. It's a strange kind of balance, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but they try. 

"Deal," Louis says. He wraps his arms around Nick's neck, and hugs him tight. "Sorry I've been so awful. I'm fucking terrified."

"I know," Nick says. "It's all right."

"I'll make it up to you."

"All right." He nods towards the other lads, waiting for him by the door. "Think you've got a show to do, love."

Louis nods. He darts in for a quick, fierce kiss, and then tears himself away so that he can go and group hug with his band before they go on stage. 

Nick feels like a parent sending their kid off to primary school for the first time. He could cry. Lou Teasdale comes over and tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow. 

"Come on," she says. "Let's watch from the side."

Nick nods. Louis and the others have already gone, an entourage of security and staff following them down the corridor. Louis jumps up out of the middle of them to blow him a kiss, and Nick lets out a breath. 

"He'll be fine," Lou says. "Come on. They're starting the intro. You don't want to miss them coming out on stage."

"No," Nick says, and he follows where she leads, until they're standing by the side of the huge stage, and the lights are going down, and everyone is screaming, and chanting Louis's name. When the pyrotechnics go off, and the lights go up, and all five of them are suddenly on stage, Louis is silhouetted against the backdrop as the crowd go wild.

Nick thinks, _you're home_ , and lets out a breath. _It's okay, you're home_. 

[end]

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/) // [twitter](https://twitter.com/sunsetmog)
> 
> \- bit more rambling about Nick and Louis post-story [here](http://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/post/119966200583/tell-us-how-louis-and-nick-are-doing-after-louis). 
> 
> \- additional scene [here](http://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/post/127638206483/whats-the-first-time-they-have-sex-after-louis).
> 
> \- another little additional scene [here](http://magicalrocketships.tumblr.com/post/154649599678/happy-birthday-weekend-adidas-daddy-here-have-a)


End file.
